I find myself up early this morning, Sunday, September 1. Tomorrow is Labor Day and it still remains one of the holiday’s that we actually still get as a paid day off.
I personally wish that they would make the election day a holiday so people would vote. Democracy can be fragile without participation by the people who it is supposed to represent. And while this election is probably the most important to a long while, I fear for our fragile republic and its future. The world remains and evil place. Lawlessness is up in our country and there is clearly one choice if we want America to continue.
On most days I get up early, usually around 3am to get ready for work. It’s a routine that includes some morning reading and taking Jewel for a walk. She likes the ritual of about a 1000 steps around the block. But by the weekend, I find myself awake at 3, if not earlier but tend to lie in bed until 4, maybe 5, and sometimes 6am before I get up to start the day.
Religiously, I am in bed by 9pm. However, there are times when I find myself falling asleep on the sofa before that time…
But this isn’t a post of my daily sleep habits. It is probably more that I found myself on the computer and needed to swage my guilt for not writing much this year. And if you check, it has been many months since I last posted here. It was May 5th to be exact. I have thought that I’d find some time, just about every weekend, to post something. Alas, I have not. In my last post, I wrote that my daughter and her horse were returning from college. Well they returned for the summer, and have returned to college for her sophomore year. And not to be outdone, my son has been about a month into his junior year in high school.
Oh to be young and carefree again…
As for I, well I am now 63 and wrapping up my 34th year of employment. I certainly don’t believe that I will continue working past December but still, I wonder if I actually will pull the trigger and retire.
It’s not that I have a complete picture as to the future, but I am sure that I cannot continue working very much longer. Management sucks and therefore work sucks. The small victories that keep me moving along are few and far between. I need to feel progress. I need to see progress. Putting in the long hours, only to see very little in return is very damaging to my psyche. I mentally cannot take much more of it.
Sadly, I still work more hours than I am paid. How foolish is that!
I describe my mental base at work as a sort of PTSD because it is actually debilitating in many ways…
It’s not like I have detailed plans for after the daily work effort ends. I have some ideas about things to do to keep my mind and my body active. I’m just not sure if it will keep me active seven days a week. After all, one can only read so much, walk so far, work at the stables so long, plan for and invest in the future.
In planning space for retirement, I have planned for at least another 30 years…
And then I think about travel, I think about where I would go, camping, fishing, hiking. Places to go. People to see. I believe that I still have much to offer, and much more to do. And then I think about my kids and the fact remains, their future will probably NOT be better than the future my parents left for me. It is those thoughts that make me think about working longer, making more money, investing for their future.
But I’ll figure it out…
TheMcKeeSpot. 