Lash officially retired sometime this Spring. Since he worked as a consultant, the actual date was pretty indefinite and it was not entirely voluntary. Jobs in his field were drying up and the offers he got meant working farther from home in less than ideal conditions.
While I was laid up with my foot surgery, I spent many hours working on a budget to get us through the next few years until our pensions, etc. could kick in. Whenever I came up with something that might work, he always called it the "worst case scenario" meaning, I guess, that retirement was the worst that could happen! I looked upon it as the "best case scenario" since he would no longer have to live in hotels and change jobs every few months. It took a while for him to see retirement as a "good" option, something that might make him happy.
I think that now, after a couple of months at home, he's satisfied with his decision. He's gotten involved in some community activities and knows that we can easily travel to see our daughters on the spur of the moment since they live only 1.5 and 3 hours away.
Most important is our time together. We can now eat, sleep, talk, walk, play, make love and spank anytime it suits us. This is so different from the years that he worked 50, 60, 70 hours per week or from the years he worked out-of-town for weeks or months on end. I was told (only half in jest) that having him around all the time would drive me crazy, but I'm so happy to have him with me. I want to cherish this time together because I've seen so many of our friends lose spouses - many of them much too young.
I want to get in all the loving, spanking, intimacy, laughter and joy that we can while we're on this earth together and still healthy enough to do it all! At our ages, we know we don't have forever, but we can have today and that's enough!
