The Best is Yet to Come

I had a wonderful lunch date today with two old friends. It's amazing when I think back to how we met almost 20 years ago. We not only worked together, but we had kids at the same time. We were working moms then and still are today. We spent a bit of time reminiscing about the days when we carried diaper bags and spent more time focused on our children. Each of us has a girl and a boy, so we were comparing notes...what are they doing now, how have they grown, when will the youngest be ready for college, when will we each be empty-nesters?

As we reminisced, our talk turned to the future. One friend turned 50 a few years ago, the other is my age and will be turning 50 in the coming year. We talked about our upcoming trips to Europe...one was going to Prague, Budapest and Vienna...and about my trip to Rome. We chatted about how we were going to maybe look at new careers after we retire. What would retirement look like? We all agreed there would be more time to do more traveling. We thought we each would still want to do some type of work, however exactly what that work would be was totally up to us. How empowering! Whatever the work, there definitely would be less hours devoted to work and more time devoted to do the other things in life that we always wanted to do but never had the time to do when we were younger. One friend even talked about taking off for a month to go live in another country and experience another culture. How exciting!

When I returned to work after our lunch I was inspired. I realized that getting older had its benefits. I started to think about all the things I wanted to do when I retire (yes, I know it is way off and that I'm not even 50 yet), but I have plenty of time to plan. I'll be able to garden again (hopefully I can bend over on my knees), start cooking and baking again (even if I have to watch my weight), start sewing (if I can see the needle hole to thread), entertain more (I'll have more time to invite all my other retired friends over to my house), and have more time to read all the books I have on my "books to read when I retire list."

Yes, while I've had a good life so far, there are so many more great things I want to do...and really, the best is yet to come!

Judi