Spending several (2.5 to be exact) days with your parents and aunt and uncle provides many life lessons. One thing I learned, and I’m surprised by, is that as much as I love thinking and talking about being retired, I’m not entirely ready for it. I definitely believe I have the essentials for retirement: a strong desire to travel, house slippers, golf clubs, a six-pack of Activia, and a preferred stylist at the community beauty college.
Unfortunately, this group has a different idea of retirement. They like to wake up early, travel to the club house, stay in the shade, watch the news, debate directions, take naps and go to bed early. In addition, they don’t drink (coffee or alcohol) or swear. When suggesting an evening at the movies, I asked them if they watch R-rated films, my uncle responded, “We don’t mind the nudity, it’s the cussing we don’t like.” “Shit,” I thought to myself. We stayed in and watched True Grit.
With Aunt Winnie’s birthday just around the corner, she has been receiving a lot of mail. “Did you see my package?” she asked me as the five of us were driving down the interstate in a Hyundai to attend a picnic. “No,” I replied. “Oh, it’s a good one. It’s a book called Sex After 60. I’ll let you read it it – it will help you prepare. Your dad read it this morning,” she replied. She gave me the book the next day and it was all she could do to keep from laughing as I opened it to find one blank page after the other. “Isn’t it funny?” she asked. It actually is quite funny and I plan to one day go to a store and buy it for some of my older friends. In the meantime, it is nap time.
An economist once said, ‘A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job.’ I think he meant ‘A recession is when your elders retire. A depression is when you are living with them in a 55+ community (aka, lifestyle) and you’ve got several years to catch up and no way out on your own.’ This blog is the proof. The economy has suffered tremendously since I’ve been here. Coffee shops and wine stores across the nation are most likely considering closing their doors due to decreased sales. Recession. Proof.