Quote Originally Posted by iris lilies View Post
You know I have a long memory Catherine and I actually remember (I don’t think I’m making this up in my head ) when you couldn’t see into the future to where you are now, that you would like to quit work. I don’t remember the exact conversation I just remember you wondering aloud why you would need so much money because you loved your job and good not want to quit it.

yeah. Retirement is great. I can’t relate to people who retire and then go back to work after a couple of years because they’re “bored. “
I can see myself saying something to that effect, for sure. That's what perplexes me about the misperception about me from the people I love most and who are most bound to me. What have I communicated to them? it makes me almost feel that they don't know "the real me."

I remember telling my mother when I was young (and I may have already said this at some point here), "I want to do everything!" To which my mother said with a cautionary tone: "Jack of all trades, master of none..." While I've always admired single-focused folks, I'm just not wired that way. (I just saw a piece on CBS Sunday Morning about a breakthrough bluegrass musician who knew he wanted to be a bluegrass musician when he was about 5, and he's been playing bluegrass every since)

In my diary from 1965 is a drawing of a Tudor house under a weeping willow tree. The indoor blueprint showed a lower floor that was broken up into about 5-6 equal-sized rooms. One had a piano in it, one had a sewing machine in it. One had an easel in it. One had bookshelves and oak paneling and a wing chair. Probably another room had a stage in it, or maybe a chapel-type room--(that was around the time I wanted to be a nun) That was my ideal home. It represents what my ideal life would be, if I weren't working. That's why I was so flummoxed when DH asked me "But if you weren't working, what would you DO??"

I am starting to branch out into that ideal life with more sewing and more painting and certainly more gardening, and my strategy is to expand my leisure time as my financial situation approaches what it needs to be in order to stop working completely.