The smell of retirement

A Palace in the Old Village is about an immigrant approaching retirement.  He is terrified of it.  Retirement was not for him.  He is worried sick about retirement, which he considers to be the doorway to death!  

Like that fictional immigrant, I too have thought a lot about aging and retirement.  However, unlike him, I had never been worried about it.  I have always been against the idea of working until death comes knocking, and in favor of retiring from work well before the grim reaper rings the doorbell. 

I never wanted to be the old fart who wanders around at work bugging people, who think to themselves, "when is this guy going to ever retire?"  It has also been important to me to step aside and yield to younger folk waiting for their opportunities, instead of contributing to the tyranny of the old.

But, I hadn't planned on retiring this young either!  

Now, I am a tad worried about retirement.

"You have a lot to contribute," a friendly neighbor remarked.

Maybe.  But where will that contribution be?

"I will read anything that you write," he added.  Before he retired, he said once that he would publish anything that I send his way.  I know he means his words of appreciation.

A writer in retirement, when I have only been a wannabe writer?

Or, do I want to be the cliched retired person who is busy volunteering, especially when I have never been into volunteering?  I have mostly been a subversive actor on social and political issues (well, until #HeWhoShallBeNamed came along.!)

Maybe like Prospero in The Tempest, I need to tell the world:

Now my charms are all o’erthrown, 

And what strength I have’s mine own, 

Which is most faint: ... 

          Now I want 

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant. 

Let your indulgence set me free.