I note that over these last few years, Crabby doesn't appear as much as she used to. Here, Guilty isn't much in evidence any more. If I want to read, I read. I do want to see more of this land we live in, and travel is important to my husband and I. Giving back to both of us is important too. He's at the Automotive Museum and I am at the American Cancer Society's Discover Shop here. Not only do I get to be their book lady two days a week, I update their Facebook page. Tho it's called giving back, I note it's more like giving a gift to me.

It would be interesting to know how many of us actually planned for retirement and, successfully followed through with those plans as opposed to those of us whose retirement was thrust upon them due to illness or job loss. With so many variables that inject themselves into our lives between the time when we start thinking about retirement and actually doing it, it's amazing that any of us live as well as we do. Am I happy, generally no. I would much rather be somewhere else pursuing a hobby/avocation that i started before I retired. Unfortunately things did not work out the way i planned. However, as time goes by, and as long as I can keep my sanity, I will learn to live, if not happily, at least successfully with what I have been given. Maybe, in the end, that's all we can hope for.

I can't find the right word to adequately describe how I feel about being retired. 'Happy' is too emotional and 'content' is too passive. I sought the right word in my Thesaurus and couldn't find it. I suppose that 'content' is as close as I can come.

I love the freedom of retirement, but never planned for it. I just slipped into it and made the adjustments to a changed lifestyle as they became necessary. I am still making adjustments as my body functions decline and I discovered that things that used to make me happy have little impact on me now.

I still find pleasure in small things but I cannot truthfully say that I am happy. However, I am never unhappy so what am I? I guess that leads me back to being contented.

How does that saying go -- "life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans"? Something like that. That's how life has gone for my husband and I for the past five years. Actually, it's kind of always gone that way, when I really sit back and think about it. Raising three sons, my husband's chronic health issues, and economic roller coaster rides, have often made life unpredictable. Still, we have been, for the most part, basically content. In our sudden and unexpected retirement this year, we are enjoying gong to thrift stores and used book sales and keeping ourselves in lots of inexpensive entertainment. I also sit on four boards, all of which are involved with reducing poverty, improving quality of life for those of lesser means, and helping to sustain the environment through the use of native plants. I, too, hope to have helped more than hindered the world and those with whom I have come in contact.

I would so like to find some peace........do I mean peace of mind? Probably. I just keep plugging along. Dee

I wish I could say I'm satisfied with my life but the fact is since my husband died two years ago, I feel "old and restless." I can't find my new grove and muse and the pressure of being nearly 72 has me frantically searching for both. On the plus side I don't have financial or dysfunctional family issues to distract or stress me, so I know I'm lucky in that regard.

I just returned my 2 young granddaughter's to the other grandmother. They are 8 and ll years old. The youngest this morning during breakfast of their favorite "French Toast" looked at me and said
"Grandma what is good about being old."
Immediately the word
peace and contented came to mind.
Much is changing in this 79th
year - wish arthur was not so severe but at a very young age, housefull of children,
divorce, career and now in a small cottage surrounded by nature - I am at peace and contented...

I carefully planned my retirement from teaching. I had the house and cars paid off. I have a small pension and lifetime health benefits from the district for whom I worked. My health has been, and i hope continues to be, excellent. We have two small grandchildren with whom I want to spend as much time as possible.

All that said, I had hoped to find part time work using my marketing skills, but that hasn't happened. I did get to live in San Francisco for 15 months which I call my year of magical living. But no job with a nonprofit materialized there. So we returned to Fresno where we both volunteer our time and skills to a variety of agencies.

I did plan for my retirement. I saw the layoffs, the huge workloads placed on older workers, the way they were targeted in a million years and knew that I would not last until 65 although I did last until I was 60. I started paying off debt and saving money in my 50's; before that I was not very organized. I endured working at the medical center. It was never my choice of employment but it did give me a steady paycheck and health insurance. So, when I got laid off at 60, I was ready for the next stage in my life.

I came to SF to be an artist and finally I had the time to do just that. I did take a part time job doing medical billing to make up the short fall between my pension and my expenses. I studied art, volunteered at a local child care center and fell into my current "job" as an arts writer for the Examiner.com.

I also blog about art so I feel that I am finally getting to do what I wanted to do since I was a child - make art, write about art and teach art. I have a decent readership on my blog and Facebook although nothing like "As Time Goes By."

I am contented for the first time in my life. I am no longer under the control of sadistic, impossible supervisors and my health has improved - no more anxiety attacks, stress eating or sleeping disorder. Imagine that! I don't know if you could say I'm happy. The definition of that changes from person to person. But I am contented, engaged, and intellectually stimulated.

How cool is that?

We all march to a different drummer. Some need bucket lists while others want the freedom of playing it by ear. The bottom line is are we making a contribution in some way large or small?

Can't say I'm making much of a contribution, but at least I'm not a burden. Happily independent.

In fact I feel this part of my life is a kind of reward. I didn't enjoy being young or middle-aged. Always felt out of sync somehow. It's a nice surprise to find that old age suits me.

I agree about the "reward" element described by Charlotte. In fact I'm finding older age (I'm 77) something of an adventure, certainly something new.
I retired slowly - towards the end of my paid work career I was working freelance. Even now someone from my past rings me for some coaching or editing: I love that! (because of my poor memory I've mostly forgotten who they are, but it does come back)
Like Cara I have arthritis, and walk with crutches some of the time: but I'm blessed with the fact that living in a village, people tend to drop in to see me and chat. And of course I have an absorbing Life Online.
Do you remember a cartoon where a dog is working on a computer and says to the dog beside him "Online no one knows you're a dog"? I feel a bit like that as online it'e easier to escape the stereotyping that's triggered by white hair and crutches.