Retirement is a wonderful thing! However, I am still having a difficult time in knowing how to balance my time. During the working years of my life, I would talk to someone that had just retired and they would always say, "I am busier now that I have retired than before", I could never figure out the meaning of this statement and considered it mostly as poor time management.
However, I now know that they were serious! It seems, since the first day of May, I have been busier than normal and still have a multitude of tasks yet to accomplish. As I was rearranging all of our landscaping and planting flowers, garden, and preparing the HITW for the summer, I kept contemplating how I did all of this in the past and still operate the businesses! Granted, that I have accomplished somethings this spring that I would have never completed if I was still operating the businesses. However, it has been fun. For instance this morning, I did something as simple as tear down an antique fishing reel that I have owned for ten years or so and repaired it, never quite had the time to do that in the past.
Currently, I am in the process of inventorying the antique rod, reel, and fishing tackle collection at the Anchor Angler, what I will will do with a couple hundred reels, rods, and several boxes of old tackle? I have no idea but I will hold onto them. Packing out the shop is like taking a walk down memory lane, over the years we have collected so many mementos in the form of art work, gifts, and just little tidbits given to us by our fishing friends. Each with a story and a memory. As an example, today I was packing out my office, on my bookshelf there was a unique rock. Knowing that I do a lot of landscaping with rocks, this particular rock was found on the A.P. beach by our friend Patti. She gave it to me, at least 15 years ago and it has been sitting on the same shelf since then. It is in the perfect shape of a hamburger, with the "hamburger patty" being a different color than the buns. What do you ever do with something like that? How about that perfect skeleton head of a "Irish Lord" that one of my grandchildren gave to me several years ago, it sits on the same shelf as the rock collection! To good to discard as unimportant. The pictures, twenty two year collection of friends and family members with fish, they to will be stored away.
Someday as my children sort through my things, they will wonder "why in the hell did dad keep this fossilized fish head? It will then become their problem on what to do with all my little treasures.
In time, I will adjust to retirement, but first I have to complete some chores I need to accomplish at the Eagle Nest and the HITW then perhaps, I will fully understand and appreciate retirement.