Every Day is Saturday
Getting older has its advantages. Restaurants offer modest discounts. Time loosens its grip. There is no fixed hour to rise, no schedule. Each day carries the same weight.
Six weeks into retirement, I sat in a parking lot waiting for my wife to finish shopping. I felt that familiar tension. The sense that I should be answering requests and moving to the next obligation. Then I remembered: I am retired. There were no requests. No promise to deliver. The feeling had no object.
Forty-five years of routine do not disappear overnight. The body expects urgency even when there is none. Each morning, I remind myself: there is no work waiting.
My day starts around 4:30 AM. I read in bed. By 5:30 AM I get up and move through a sequence. Feeding the cat, grinding beans, and brewing coffee. Then more reading, scanning the markets, and considering investments. The routine remains, but it belongs to me now.
At sunrise, I put on a weighted pack and hike four miles. When I return, I clean up, make tea, and write. I aim for five hundred words. The afternoon is for chores, more writing, and reading.
My ambitions are simple. I want to write with clarity and purpose. I want to spend time in the wilderness. I want to give some of that time back—maintaining trails, the Appalachian Trail. My wife wants to travel. I will go wherever she chooses. We bring our adult children when we can and rent places in the woods.
Four months into retirement, the shape of my retirement life is becoming clearer.
Every day is Saturday.