I’m only 32, and I am planning/hoping to retire within 3 years, but man, 3 years just seems so far off. The thought of retiring just consumes me right now, and the thought of working for *another* 3 years is frankly depressing.
My desk is surrounded by pictures of our cottage and our 4 dogs. I’m looking at a winter picture of our cottage right now, the ground blanketed with snow, a little bit of smoke gently billowing out of the chimney. I think we had a stew slow-cooking on the wood stove that day. I remember walking in, the sharp contrast of the cold to hot, with that delicious aroma just permeating the place. I want to be there so bad right now I could cry.
Its funny, you go through University (in my case, engineering) thinking about all the crap you’re going to buy and how deliriously happy you’re going to be with your big screen TV, your dream house and your sports car. And then you get that stuff and it turns out its this itty-bitty cottage filled with all your old stuff that you get to with a 96 Pathfinder and a boat as old as you are where you finally find happiness.
We got the cottage to fill a void in our (well, my) life. I got sick of the weekends being about “what do you want to do today”. It seems like in the city, there’s only one thing to do, go out and spend money. At the cottage, that question is never posed. There’s always something to do. We’re currently redoing the siding. Come September, we’ll start preparing for winter by making firewood. The lake with freeze over by December, and we’ll start walking on the ice again with the dogs, watch the deer, feed the birds. Mid-winter we’ll make some more firewood to restock our supply to see us through to the spring. In spring the sap starts to run, and we’ve been blessed with 30 or so sugar maples on the property, so we’ll start collecting and boiling sap to make maple syrup. Early summer we’ll plant our garden, start swimming and canoeing.
The funny thing is, in many ways, the cottage made things worse. It’s the cottage that got me thinking seriously about ER. We were sitting out by the fire one night listening to the loons and I suddenly realized that, for once, I felt content. I felt happy. I didn’t need anything else. It was a strange feeling, to realize that what you’ve been programmed to believe by society is all a crock of ****.
And then Monday came and back to work and I realized that this is most definitely what I do not want. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but it seems like I’m hearing and reading more and more stories about people who retire at 60 and then die, or get horribly sick, and its just so completely and utterly sad. The other day on the radio they were discussing Alzheimer’s and a woman called in. Her and her husband had retired a few years ago at age 60 and 3 weeks after retiring he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I’ll never forget what she said. “Suddenly, the golden years don’t seem so golden anymore”. It’s enough to make you cry. Its really reinforced my desire to quit the rat race ASAP.
Anyhow, sorry for rambling. Trying to kill of another day of work so I can get to the cottage.
My desk is surrounded by pictures of our cottage and our 4 dogs. I’m looking at a winter picture of our cottage right now, the ground blanketed with snow, a little bit of smoke gently billowing out of the chimney. I think we had a stew slow-cooking on the wood stove that day. I remember walking in, the sharp contrast of the cold to hot, with that delicious aroma just permeating the place. I want to be there so bad right now I could cry.
Its funny, you go through University (in my case, engineering) thinking about all the crap you’re going to buy and how deliriously happy you’re going to be with your big screen TV, your dream house and your sports car. And then you get that stuff and it turns out its this itty-bitty cottage filled with all your old stuff that you get to with a 96 Pathfinder and a boat as old as you are where you finally find happiness.
We got the cottage to fill a void in our (well, my) life. I got sick of the weekends being about “what do you want to do today”. It seems like in the city, there’s only one thing to do, go out and spend money. At the cottage, that question is never posed. There’s always something to do. We’re currently redoing the siding. Come September, we’ll start preparing for winter by making firewood. The lake with freeze over by December, and we’ll start walking on the ice again with the dogs, watch the deer, feed the birds. Mid-winter we’ll make some more firewood to restock our supply to see us through to the spring. In spring the sap starts to run, and we’ve been blessed with 30 or so sugar maples on the property, so we’ll start collecting and boiling sap to make maple syrup. Early summer we’ll plant our garden, start swimming and canoeing.
The funny thing is, in many ways, the cottage made things worse. It’s the cottage that got me thinking seriously about ER. We were sitting out by the fire one night listening to the loons and I suddenly realized that, for once, I felt content. I felt happy. I didn’t need anything else. It was a strange feeling, to realize that what you’ve been programmed to believe by society is all a crock of ****.
And then Monday came and back to work and I realized that this is most definitely what I do not want. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but it seems like I’m hearing and reading more and more stories about people who retire at 60 and then die, or get horribly sick, and its just so completely and utterly sad. The other day on the radio they were discussing Alzheimer’s and a woman called in. Her and her husband had retired a few years ago at age 60 and 3 weeks after retiring he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I’ll never forget what she said. “Suddenly, the golden years don’t seem so golden anymore”. It’s enough to make you cry. Its really reinforced my desire to quit the rat race ASAP.
Anyhow, sorry for rambling. Trying to kill of another day of work so I can get to the cottage.
