retirement fears....

by vicki

Retired at age 62, after working 30 years at a job I loved. It was my decision to retire. Hubby is retired and loving it.

My problem is .... I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.... I keep thinking something is going to happen, illness, (though I'm healthy) or some other disaster..... it's like I'm afraid to be happy and move on to something new.

The fears I have just seem irrational, I can't seem to settle on where I'm supposed to go next..... I keep wondering what's next???

Wendy I wonder if someone you remember from your past said something or had something bad happen after retirement - and that one experience, one little comment in life -- gets stuck in your head, your subconscious. Sometimes, esp when you know darn well there is no rational reason for your fears - its that dumb notion stuck in your head. why don't you make an appointment with a counselor/therapist. I bet one session of talking this out could help you...
get past it.

You owe it to yourself to live the retired life you were meant to live!

I hope you can talk to someone, from your church or a paid therapist who can help you think it through to get rid of these fears.. you'll feel so much better!

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FEAR NOT!
by: Anonymous

Vicki,

Wendy is RIGHT!
"Retirement fears"
by: Tom Leitch

This might be a stretch but bear with me. I've been sober going on 40 years. A.A. taught me a number of things and among them is the need to take an honest and fearless inventory of myself and my life.

If you had a interesting and challenging occupation it is understandable that you feel odd. I was a trucker for 35 years. It was my identity, such as it was. Now I'm just some old groaner in a car.

Learn to step back and objectify. In the early 1980s work was at a standstill. Unemployment benefits had run out a year earlier. The only work one could find was at a car wash or summer landscaping jobs. The new house we had built a couple of years earlier was in foreclosure. The only money we had was the change in our pockets but we had food in the house. We also had a late child who was six years old. One gloomy winter afternoon my wife and I were pacing our country kichen worrying - as usual. One of us suggested we count our blessings and we did. We had food to eat. We had a warm place to sleep. We had our health and hopes. We didn't qualify for food stamps because of some technicality. And a local funeral home was dunning us to pay the rest of our bill from our oldest son's death a year earlier. We prayed. We prayed a lot. We kept the faith.

Every two weeks I went to the unemployment office to register. At the time Congress was deciding whether to give unemployed auto workers financial benefits. Talking with union reps, it didn't look good.

There was nothing on radio or tv to inform me of what happened. I went to the unemployment office to register as I had done for a year.

When I got up to the counter after a few hours in line, stretching outside for blocks, the clerk said my new benefits had been approved.

Unemployment checks had a dollar limit so the clerk grabbed a handful of blank checks and started running them through a stamping machine. One after another after another after another.......... totalling $18,000!

If money isn't your problem then you probably didn't fully appreciate my little story.

If you are financially sound, have reasonably good health, a spouse that loves you and a God who has looked favorably on you, what more do you need except a direction to go in?

Pick one.

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