Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Decades as an orchestral musician taught me the value of practice. Years of woodworking taught me the wisdom of the planning and the pre-cut double-check. A stint running a newspaper press taught me the dangers of over-confidence. Twenty summers working in my gardens taught me the peace that can come from taking the long view.

With that as preamble, it’s probably not a surprise that I am approaching my retirement with forethought, prudence, and not a few contingency plans.

I’m still a couple of years from retirement, maybe three, but no more than that, so it’s starting to get real. As a result, planning has begun. I ran the numbers on our assets and income streams, and we’re good there. We’ll be reviewing our budget to get a current picture of just how much we do spend each year, and on what (plus what’s discretionary and what isn’t). And, last week, I took time off for what we’ve begun to call a retirement “practice session.”

We’re all different. We all want different things from life. Retirement will be no different in that respect.

Example: Yesterday a friend of mine, also nearing retirement, described his vision of how his will go. He wants to open a food truck. He is adapting recipes to fuse various Asian cuisines with his love of stews, smoked meats, and sausages. It is his plan to run a tidy little business with a handful of employees, four days a week or so, and (hopefully) sell more than what he calculates is the profit/loss breakpoint of fifty plates a day. He’s always had a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and this is not the first side hustle he’s engaged in, so this is not entirely new territory for him. In short, he knows what he’s doing and, more importantly, he knows himself and where his passions lie.

For me, this would a living nightmare; for my friend, a dream.

But this past week, during my most recent “practice session,” I took a long, hard look at where my passions lie, and I discovered both a problem and a solution.

I’ve always had a hobby. Sometimes they’ve even paid for themselves. I’ve made hand-bound books (blank and with content), repaired antique watches (and sold them), played in string quartets (for love and money), and developed software for writers (who didn’t buy it). At various periods in my life I’ve read voraciously, refurbished fountain pens, built furniture, and collected Victorian coins. I’ve written novels, short stories, poems, and have kept this blog going for nigh on a decade.

So, when I ask myself the question, “What do I want to do during my retirement?” the only answer I can think of is a shrug.

Because—and here’s both my point and the solution—I know myself.

I honestly do not know what I want to do during my retirement, but that’s not because I can’t think of anything to do. Rather, it’s because there’s so much I want to do—things I have done, and things I’ve never done, things I haven’t even heard of yet—that I find it impossible to settle on a single activity. I don’t have an overriding passion for any one thing.

I know myself well enough to realize that this is not due to a lack of passion, but rather to an overabundance of it. It’s nothing for me to take a deep, deep dive into whatever intrigues me at the moment. I’ll spend untold hours, days, weeks, even months focused on one activity, During such endeavors, I always learn a ton, eventually achieve a middling level of competency, then lose interest in it and move on. My retirement, rather than spent consumed with golf or sailing or knitting jumpers for penguins, will instead be a constant parade of diverse activities, each with its own set of concepts, techniques, jargon, supply chains, and tools. Some of these activities will strike a chord within me, and I’ll return to them from time to time, but not all. At the end of this or that foray, it will become clear that it’s just not my cuppa, and I’ll walk away without remorse.

And that, of course, is the solution to my quandary. To know myself, and plan accordingly.

I’m looking forward to my retirement. I’ve worked long and hard to set it up. Sure, I hit some snags en route, but nothing I haven’t been able to handle.

For the time being, though, I’ve begun to think about which of my past projects should be jettisoned and which I want to keep around. I already have some contenders.

After all, a garage can only hold so much.

k