26 days and counting

There are 26 calendar days - 13 working days - between me and retirement (the discrepancy due to a company holiday for July 4th and 5 days of planned vacation).  It is a thrilling if somewhat bowel-loosening milestone.   And while I feel I have waited years, literally, for this Day to arrive, in that slippery way time has of sliding out of your grasp, the Day seems to have sneaked up to be right around the corner.  I feel I have waited forever.  And I feel I am not prepared.  

Of course the big fear is money - what if there's not enough of it?  But then I've lived much of my life with that fear, including days when small children were dependent on me and there truly wasn't enough money.  I remember going to the local kosher butcher in New York and having him give me at a discounted price days old chicken that was on the point of "turning".  I would buy a whole chicken and he would cut it up in 8ths so there would be more pieces to give the kids, making it seem like more chicken.  Monthly I would choose which bills to pay and which to skip.  Once an eviction notice was nailed to our front door - literally.  And we made it through... with the generous help and support of friends and community ... and I would say also, by my own grit and determination.

So what really is the basis of my anxiety now?  I think it is just facing a big change, a life-altering threshold.  I've faced other life-altering thresholds and crossed them successfully.  I left radical politics to make a new life for myself and my children.  I became Jewish, making an unfamiliar religion, its rituals, language, culture my own.  I moved, multiple times.  Change jobs, multiple times.  I faced serious cancer, surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, and came out the other side.  

But I think that retirement is fundamentally about losing the camouflage on your "self" provided by your job or career.  You know what they say, when an American meets someone new they ask "What do you do?" not "Who are you?"  So who are you if you don't work?  You are a kid, an unemployed (aka unwanted) person or an old person - in all 3 cases, you are irrelevant to the question "What do you do?"  Retirement makes you face your self and ask, "When I am freed of the obligation to do what someone else tells me to do, what do I want to do?  What am I interested in?  Who am I?"  Retirement is an existential challenge as much as or more than a practical one.

Heavy thoughts on this foggy Maine morning 26 days from the Day.   It wasn't foggy a day or so ago on Ella's and my morning walk, just overcast but with the sun breaking through:

Meanwhile, I await a visit from Sam and my grandsons, just a week away.  So much going on in midcoast Maine:

• Talk by Beekeeper Jean Vose, Newcastle Fire Station, River Road. 6 p.m. biz meeting of Newcastle Historical Society. 7 p.m. free, public talk by Vose on keeping bees in your backyard. Handouts.

• Free Talk by Heiwa Tofu Owner, 7 p.m., Lincolnville Library. Jeff Wolovitz shows photos, describes how his organic tofu is made in Belfast, shares hard-learned biz lessons and gives samples.

• "Roadside Maine: A Route 1 Journey 1900-1906," 7 p.m., Centennial Celebration at Bayside Community Hall, Northport. Free, public talk by Maine historian Earle Shettleworth

 • Talk on Magna Carta's Role Today, 7:30 p.m., Old Town House, just off Union Common. Free, public talk by Rockland lawyer Bill Maddox to Union Historical Society.

Not sure these are the main or Maine events to attract my son, or his 4-year old and 8-year old sons, not even sure about this 64-year old, but I know we'll find plenty to do.

Peace.