The view from this far

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This week I enter my 59th year. So what does it feel like tobe approaching my 60s? The real answer is a little complex, but I'll give it atry.
The first answer is that I feel this is an ideal age. I wishI could stay here for a while. I wake up feeling pretty good every morning, withsomeone I am still madly in love with, but with the advantage of a lot moreexperience, wisdom, and resources versus when I was younger.
In some ways this age is liberating. Take career issues, forexample. I remember all too well how painful it was to be struggling withmaking a living in my 30s and 40s. When you are that age, career problems loomextremely large, because you have to worry about supporting yourself for anotherquarter-century or more. Nowadays I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Aging also liberates you from people's expectations. In my20s and 30s, with an engineering degree and a hot technical career, anysuggestion of trying another path was met with alarm by my friends, myrelatives, and my mortgage. Now no one cares anymore, so I get to do whatever Iwant. And ironically I am busier and more successful than ever - although ifyou ask me what I do for a living, allow enough time for a lengthy answer.
At the same time, there is a twinge of sadness that timemarches on. You notice it when you scan your iTunes playlist and see how many ofthe artists you grew up with have passed on. You look through your Facebookfriends list and see that a lot of your colleagues are retired. Or you callyour mother and she doesn't remember your wife's name anymore. I had a bit of ashock last month when we got tickets to see Chicago and the Doobie Brothers -groups that formed the soundtrack to our dating years - and realized that theiroriginal members are all roughly 70 years old now. So as much fun as it is tobe here now, I still have to wrap my head around the fact that it doesn't endthere.
Which leads to another conundrum. I am still very much inthe arena these days. I write, I speak, I travel, and I have a new book comingout next year from a major publisher. Thankfully I am busy enough to be workingfar too many hours, and have been for a long time. Do I plan to shut all thisdown and start playing shuffleboard in a few years? No. So what does retirementlook like for someone like me?
I frankly haven't figured that one out yet. To be as busy asI am now into, say, my 70s sounds kind of stupid, especially when I could besharing a lot more sunsets with Colleen. But when you are a go-getter like Iam, simply watching the sun set every night would be a recipe for boredom anddepression. I never intend to retire in the traditional sense of the word, butthe challenge will be striking a balance with the many things I truly enjoy.
Perhaps my latest venture is a good metaphor for where mylife seems to be heading. Years ago I quietly went back to graduate school topursue a longstanding pipe dream: becoming a psychotherapist as Itransitioned into retirement. Nowadays I am in practice a couple of days aweek, on top of all the other crazy things I do, and Colleen gets to chuckle atme when my schedule is full or I have to rush out for a crisis intervention. (Oneof my brothers put it even more succinctly, saying you couldn't force him to dothis at gunpoint.) But I enjoy it, and did this intentionally to stay relevantas I age and the phone stops ringing in my consulting practice. Except that ithasn't stopped ringing yet. So that may be what my retirement looks like afterall: reasonably well planned, focused on things I love, and perhaps busier thanI expected. Stay tuned!