BABY BOOMER GOLDEN YEARS

What is missing? Check below. via boomerpdx.

In spite of laying the best of plans for a comfy retirement, things happen.

Things go right, go wrong, and your plans change.

Maybe you’ve had someone do your forecast for living a good life and it felt pretty good.

Ask them to do a series of forecasts. One for you and your wife. One for you and your wife individually, which might be the basis for a ‘let’s stay together’ talk.

Get a forecast that includes roommates. You never know who night show up.

The future is waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and maybe you’re tired of hearing about retirement, tired of seeing pictures of gray haired people obviously on Human Growth Hormones.

Have seen those shots? It’s usually a man with before and after pictures. A quote usually says, “And I have the energy of a thirty year old.”

A young lady stands beside him with a dazed expression, so it must be true.

Before you spend another minute stressing over interest rates and tax plans and the most desirable places to retire according to AARP, take a good look around.

It’s your hometown, son, and now you’re sixty. Will you stay or will you go?

Reasons for staying.

• You’re in your comfort zone. The town is just the right size and you know where everything is.
• Friends and family live nearby. You can’t believe how it’s worked out. You never feel alone and left out.
• You like your world just the way it is. The news shows a world in turmoil, but not your corner of it.

Reasons for leaving.

• You need new thrills and chills. You want to take a walk and get lost, just not in the woods where you might stay lost.
• Alone time is your time. No matter who you say it, leave me alone is a put down. Say that to someone often enough and you’ll be alone all the time.
• Maybe the travel bug only nibbled instead of biting, but you know there’s a world out there for you to see.

The compromise.

You’ve heard of snowbirds? You’ve asked someone where they live and they give a few locations along with the time of year they live in each place.

This could be you. Jet set, train set, car set, you want the freedom to move from place to place without losing track of the life you crafted.

You’ll be around, just not all the time.

Remember the time your best friend moved away in grade school? They left an empty place no one ever filled up like your first BFF. Now you understand the loss and how it relates to the bigger life picture.

Instead of sadness at that loss and every one since, why not celebrate the time you had with people you care about. Sure, you can always crawl into a hole and disappear. That’s always an option though never a good one.

It’s more about the good time, which are always unique. No one wants the same good time over and over. There’s such a thing as too much ice cream and too much Disneyland.

Good friends got that way because you shared the joy of discovery with them and it turned out you like some of the same things.

Now that’s a memory. Work on the things you like doing and get better. Do that and the next time you see your pals they’ll respect the time you’ve put in.

Learn a new language and a new instrument. All that’s left to do is learn a new song. Do that and your baby boomer golden years will get brighter every day.

And a one, and a two, and a three…

You can almost hear Knockin’ On Heavens Door? via boomerpdx