Tick Tock Habits

Having never given a stray thought to retirement until recently, I now find it much on my mind, especially after a night of sleeping in fits and starts - an hour here, an hour there - until the little alarm clock trills (well, actually it shatters the morning stillness like a fire siren) and all the animals seems to rise and shine as one. Of course they've been on and off awake since about three, accommodating each of my tosses and turns with a stubborn push back and now they're hungry and impatient for food and attention.  If there's one thing they all universally understand, it's that damn alarm clock.  Five in the morning and it's a free-for-all.

Except for a random year here and there, I've worked all my life and have never been able to imagine not doing so.  I like routine and stability and being counted upon, having a place to go where I'm needed and a desk of my own, the security of a paycheck.  Being useful and having a clear role to play is comforting and familiar.  Until recently, I'd never thought about not working just as I'd never thought about dying but now in the quiet of the night when I can't sleep and all I hear is the tick tock of the little clock above my head and the animals' slow, steady breathing, new and radical thoughts drift through my mind.  Sleeping 'til seven or even eight.  Actually taking a vacation.  Not having to be anywhere at a specified time.  Grocery shopping during the week.  Freedom vs idleness.  Time on my hands and no demands save what I impose on myself.  Work is a habit, a necessary evil if you haven't the foresight to come from or marry money and I'm beginning to wonder if it might not be time for a change.  My five year plan is starting to look too long.  With a part time job, I think idly, could I do it in three?  Could I do it in less?

The entire idea is so foreign that it almost doesn't compute but I'm slowly and tentatively learning to like it.

Meanwhile, I try to be like Charlie Brown and "dread one day at a time".