Be grateful for retirement

When I first retired, I met a lovely woman whose face emanated happiness. She personified gratitude. I remember thinking, I want this life.

My friend Marianne is driving me to a swim class at Sussex Academy, and I ask, "What are you grateful for?"

"Flexibility," she states. "I was raised in Delaware, but my husband and I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, because we wanted to try living someplace new. Then we moved back because we missed it here."

My companion Jane pipes up from the backseat, "What I love is having no pressure from work. It was so hard to get away, and now I can go visit my son when I feel like it. But most important, I have my health."

The three of us murmur agreement. It's the reason we are up early and traveling to swim class. We recognize that while some of our retired friends are getting cancer treatments, we are swinging our legs in the pool.

My retired friends are talking about taking more trips because they don't know how long they will feel healthy enough to walk and see the sites. Too many of us know or have heard stories about people who put off traveling because the costs are astronomical, only to fall ill and lose their chance to see an iceberg or Yellowstone National Park.

My husband and I want home improvements, but if we have to make choices between looking at new landscaping or traveling to another city or country, we opt for the latter.

The words disposable income were foreign to me growing up. They still don't seem fitting. I can't believe my good fortune.

My parents lived paycheck to paycheck and pooled their dollars to rent a place in Ocean City for one week every summer. A vacation for my husband's parents meant visiting relatives in Michigan or Florida.

If my mother-in-law had not had a stroke which left her blind in one eye, she probably would never have retired. And in the last five years of her life, she was so grateful to make applesauce, take up porcelain painting and spend time with her grandchildren.

I don't know why it's taken me this long to truly enjoy retirement, and to look as happy and relaxed as that woman I met seven years ago. I still feel that I should be working too.

Last week, my husband and I joined neighbors and went bowling at Lefty's Alley and Eats. Friendly staff, great facility, and the cheesesteak sandwich was one of the best I have ever eaten, too! Go for lunch if you don't bowl. Play laser tag if your knees can stand it. Play pickleball or mahjong, volunteer or take a vacation; just be a grateful retiree.