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The Truth about Being Retired
And it ain’t all pretty…
I know I write a lot about being older.
I do it as a Public Service to you youngin’s out there in Mediumland. Someone’s gotta warn you about what may be coming to you — if you’re lucky.
I looked forward to my retirement — never wanted to be a nurse — wanted to be a journalist. I read the Washington Post almost everyday as a teenager. I watched the news — Huntley and Brinkley (ask your parents). I wanted to go to college, major in journalism with a minor in political science and write for The Post. Instead I went to nursing school and learned how to thump chests and clean bedpans.
I always say I could have been Woodward or Bernstein (again, ask your parents, if you haven’t been following this era’s impeachment) but considering the time period, I probably would have been assigned to the “Women’s Pages.”
So after forty plus years in a profession I did not want, I looked forward to retirement so I could continue with the writing I’d been doing for half of those forty years. I freelanced for the local daily newspaper and wrote for an independent monthly, wrote some short stories and even had a few published. During this time I would get up at five AM to write before getting ready for work.
