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My First Few Days of Retirement
Today is my third day of retirement, and I am thoroughly enjoying it so far. Prior to my last day at work, people would always ask me, “What are you going to do?”
My standard answer was, and still is, “more reading and more writing,” and I have done so thus far. I have always enjoyed those two activities early in the morning, but now that I don’t have to rush off to work each day, I can leisurely spend more time with my books and with my thoughts.
I am currently reading a 1995 book entitled How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill, and I am working on two new books of my own: I’m putting the finishing touches on Streets of Golfito, a novel about my Peace Corps experience in Costa Rica almost 50 years ago, and my wife, Barbara, and I are also writing a book about our elder daughter, Maria, who passed away from cancer four years ago at the age of 30. As Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” so I guess I’m still examining.
What else will I do in retirement? I have lots of ideas, probably too many. I definitely want to explore more thoroughly hobbies that I have dabbled with in the past, hobbies such as drawing and playing the guitar. But, believe it or not, I also enjoy new, mindless pastimes such as coloring and assembling Lego kits for adults. In the recent past, I have received as gifts two adult coloring…
