I attended a writers’ conference two weeks ago. I’m still working (reworking) my plans for life without Rick after retirement. We had big plans. We started our web design business in 2001 with the goal of having plenty of work that we could enjoy doing together remotely from our favorite spot in Florida half the year, and back near our family in Michigan in the warmer months.
Rick was very goal-oriented. He made that plan 20 years before he would be able to retire, and I thought it was a wonderful idea. He was actually able to semi-live out the plan. He took a buyout from his job 5 years before his “official” retirement age and spent those years riding his bicycle and visiting web clients each morning, working on the sites while I was at work in the afternoons, then cooking our dinner and chilling in the evenings. I’m so thrilled that he had those years to enjoy himself, because he died at 63 – just after the social security kicked in and a year before I would have been able to join him on those Florida trips where we’d sit by the pool working on websites instead of being holed up in the frigid Michigan winters.
So, our plan for our golden years never came to fruition. Now I need a new plan. A “me only” plan.
