Retirement has a funny way of arriving like a cruise ship in fog: huge, inevitable, and somehow still a surprise when it looms out of nowhere and parks itself in your life.
Nobody tells you the real shock isn’t the lack of work. It’s the sudden, unrequested intimacy with your own thoughts. All day. Every day. Like you’ve been trapped in a lift with your own brain and it won’t stop making observations about everything you’ve ever done wrong, plus the state of modern packaging.
You expect relief. A bit of peace. Maybe a gentle glide into hobbies. Instead you get exposure. Raw, unfiltered. You realise how much of “being fine” was held together by routine, colleagues, deadlines, and the quiet dignity of having somewhere to be at 8:30.
And now? Now it’s you, a kettle, and the creeping suspicion that society has moved on and left you standing there like a man trying to pay with a paper cheque at a self-checkout. Apparently this is normal now.
If that sounds familiar, I write about it over on The Old Grey Thinker. No gurus. No hustle. Tea. Obviously. Have a read here: http://theoldgreythinker.substack.com