Over the Abyss

It has to be said that the official end of my working life is all but upon me. Now aged 64 I have only a few short months until I qualify for my pension.

I don’t feel of pensionable age, in mind or body, but here it is looming on the horizon.

I have mixed feelings regarding the ending of my useful productive life. Writing it still does not jive and I can’t absorb the inevitable.

There is the fear of a feeling of uselessness, not wanted, of no consequence, an old fart.

Possibly had I reached this crossroads in a more normal fashion where retirement had been planned for the last two decades may be the landing in no job land would be made with undercarriage in place and functioning.

But true to form, my form, my vocational demise has been at the vagaries of life’s many twists and turns. My work life has mirrored my private life, all my life, and the roller coaster would do reality an injustice. So if truth be told it would come as no surprise to educated observers that it was as inevitable as night following day.

Without a doubt, I have been a controversial figure from my early years to now. This is not the forum to explore the why’s and the wherefores. Another place, another time.

What I can say is something you may identify with and that is, whatever the perception of me and my actions throughout my life I have always stayed true to myself.

In that statement lies the fact that being so was the building block for my tenacity and the associated capability to rise from the ashes on more than one occasion in my life.

Apart from irrational panic attacks which I deal with easily and sometimes not so, I have the resilience and self-belief to remain in control.

Enough of the downside, the positives of retirement are multiple.

Marching to your own drum. Time to smell the roses. Time to grow the roses. Opportunity to develop hobbies, in my case cooking. Time to read and digest.

Time to love and look after our beloved dogs. Walk with them, talk with them, play with them. These our surrogate children. Cultivate existing and new friends. Breathe the air, and see the sights.

Feel unburdened with the ways of the world, able to cherry-pick your moments from the passing dramas.

For me the positives far outway the negatives but for one important point. I know finances are insufficient to cover our golden years. So in the accepted sense of formal retirement, life will still need to deliver.

But for me, I want to press home my writing and push it to where I want it to go. I will no doubt call upon my inherent tenacity.

And with some inner power may well finance our golden years with poetry and prose.

The pen having written writes and moves on!