After personal and family health problems, I retired rather hastily at 58, so I never had a chance to think much about what I would do in retirement. But just before I said goodbye to my classroon and clinicals, a friend and I decided to write our nursing stories. I have found this new avocation of writing to fill any voids that may have occurred. Now I spend a lot of time on my blog and promoting my nursing career memoir, “Caring Lessons.”
I’m very thankful that I’m financially secure. I have friends whose husbands ditched them when in their 50s and 60s who are finding they still need to work part time.
Retirement means to me just what my subjects said in my later-in-life doctoral research on “The Meaning of Leisure” to older persons: “It’s a time when you can do what you want, when you want, and for how long you want to do it.” I didn’t know then, 20 years ago, how true their words would turn out to be for me.
ElderChicks 
oh how true those words ..do what I want; when I want; and for how long I want …retirement …lovely,lovely words …. I may not be a retired one that travels to Africa, or Ireland but I have books to read and DVDS to watch of Africa and Ireland….I may not spend $40 on a steak meal but I do have my Bread Co and favorite mouth watering chicken places to visit and relax, read a book, visit with a friend …Niagra Falls may not be at my door..but a lovely, refreshing rain right on my home street gives me thought for pausing and counting my retirement blessings…and then the knock on the door, the screen door flying open from the garage and the grandkids visit their NANA!
The trick for many seems to be figuring our what it is that we really want to do. Discovering new passions, or perhaps rediscovering old interests has great rewards. Passing on what we’ve learned to younger people can be a real source of satisfaction and take us out of pressing immediate concerns.
Hi “name withheld”– I love your attitude! How true that we can make the most of each day over seeminglingly little things. As long as we have breath, so much for which to be thankful. And those grandkids (and younger people, Thelma) to be and share with make the notion of a legacy so valuable.