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I sent out a Twitter post this evening. It went like this, “Real Independence Day is when you live on your own, with your own, and by your own. Until then you are not free. I wish you all the best!”.
Last year at this time, I was not living on my own and by my own. I was still tethered to a 9 to 5 job, waiting for the day to arrive when I would be able to declare my independence. Little did I know that the day was just around the corner.
You might be close to that day or very far away. I can only guaranteee one thing. The time will go by very quickly. We make little milestones to make the week pass more slowly, and it seems to be working.
For example, we start the week with the Farmer’s Market. We get fresh vegetables, fruit, and dairy products. One treat is getting fresh locally made cheese. On Wednesday, we have Starbucks in the morning – a couple of lattes and some pound cake – as a treat. Wednesday night is salmon night. We get some fresh salmon and cook it on the grill. Yum Yum!!
Fridays, we enjoy breakfast together and enjoy each other’s company. We have espresso at home and plan the weekend. While having a set schedule each week seems to make the week pass quickly, it also enables us to take each day as it comes.
Yes, we have a plan and know that tomorrow wll be this or that, but we also know that each day is planned and it makes the time go by more slowly.
You may be thinking that being retired we spend most days together and planning a couple of mornings together seems strange. But we are two independent people and have different paths we follow. We are not joined at the hip.
Having two days where we plan on having coffee or breakfast together allows us to get together and plan for the weekend or catch up with what the other is doing.
Maybe that is the difference between retiring at 65 or 67 and retiring at 52. When you retire at 52, you are still 52 in the mind and are not really retired in your mind except for you are doing everything you always did but you are not going to work every day.
So we get up and go our spearate ways. It might be a bike ride first thing in the morning, or a jog in the neighborhood. We are going in different directions, but find if we set aside some time for mutual events in the morning, it allows us to be different but together. So we go to the Farmer’s Market. The next day we go in different directions. Then on the next day we do Starbucks. Then the next day we go our separate ways. Fridays, we catch up and have a sit down breakfast and plan the weekend.
It seems to work for us.
Can you be working and be independent? It never seemed to work for me. I could not see myself as having a life where I was not working from 9 to 5 and being free at the same time. But maybe you can. If so, GREAT!
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For Taking Early Retirement (TER), I hope you are enjoying a great retirement or are close to that day!
Jeremiah John
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