What to do

When I was a preteen I wanted to be a test pilot. I got my first pair of glasses at 12. Pilot dream died and the next best thing was to be Nuclear Physicist. Going to a piss poor high school ended that dream in my freshman year. I did take music lessons all through school, learn to play piano, sax and oboe. Tried out for college orchestra, not good enough. Thought I could get a cush job in the Army when they had tryouts for the WAC band, too bad, three days before they remove a wisdom tooth and I couldn't blow a note. No second chances in the military. Such as my life as been all failed dreams, my last, getting a degree and it not counting for anything; no new job or promotion. People are always comfortable with the way you were.

So now I am retired, the media says it time for me to reinvent myself. The question is how. I am not one who is fortunate to say 60 is the new 40. My body rebels against that. I'm alive without dialysis, but being a kidney transplant patient is still not without its problems. It also takes resources, which I have little for the first year and with utility cost doubling almost every year, inflation and my drug cost; additional income will get sucked up.

Volunteer? No! I given too much out of duty, not for emotional reward. I get nothing out of it. I was intrigued for a while and thought I might enter into a teaching program. My application was accepted, but I bailed out, because it was really designed for young teachers. I would have had to complete a masters in three years while teaching, full time. Too much work to be retired.

I can't stare at the wall, but what to do?

I'm Cold

Today was rainy and warm. At times a heavy downpour. It was the kind of rain one could enjoy sitting on a screened-in porch. The rain was not the kind I wanted to drive in, but none the less I had too.

When I entered my building it was cool and soon as I walked back to my workstation the cold temperature and dampness hit me. A few hours latter, my legs were achy. Later that afternoon I noticed the temperature, 69 degrees F. For me this is cold. It isn't like being outside with the sun shining, generating a little warmth on my skin. It is like being in a cold rain, soaked to the skin.

All day I kept thinking about retirement and that soon I can be warm or be able to keep warm. I was seriously thinking about going to personnel and signing the papers to retire, although I have three months to go. The nineteen years I have work at this place I have hardly ever been comfortable. I am cold all year long. The older I get the less I can tolerate the coldness. I have always tolerated a lot of heat as long as the humidity was low. I grew up without air conditioning and remember the Five and Dime had only ceiling fans in the summer. Now everywhere seems super cold in summer. As for work, I'm sick and tired of being sick and cold.