Don't let anyone lie to you. When you're young, the older generation who are fortunate to already be retired tell you that your reward for a lifetime of toiling, paying bills, paying taxes, doing the laundry, mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, chasing kids, attending kids' activities, ad nauseam is the rainbow promise of retirement. HA!
What they don't tell you is when you get old enough to retire, you'll still have to pay bills, pay taxes, do the laundry, mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, chase kids, and attend kids' activities only this time it'll be your grandkids doing all the sports. I thought having only two children whose activities we were keeping up with was a piece of cake. How did it morph into a dozen grandkids? Luckily, I guess, we're down to only a handful that are still interested and young enough to participate, which is wonderful, l but still... We have three potentially athletic great-grandsons growing fast and another one making his appearance this fall.
They don't tell you that when you finally get to retirement age (which we are) you'll have a lot ‘free’ time (grandkids' activities notwithstanding) but won't have the energy to actually do anything. That's not entirely true. The lack of energy part is true; the lots more free time isn't. Between doctors' appointments, going for scans and follow-ups we also have two or three grandkids spending long weekends with us almost every week. We must plan way ahead if we want to do something not involving the kids or grandkids. The grandkids think Nana and Papa can make or build anything with all our 'free' time. It's our own fault. We made anything they asked for early on and set an expectation we're now finding hard to maintain.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Nope, just trying to tell it like it is. We feel very fortunate to have our kids and grandkids living close by where we get to see them all the time. I know of some who are not as lucky.
Anyway, I thought that once our children were grown all the worries would melt away. HA! Nobody told us that having children means a lifetime of worry even if everything is rainbows and puppies in their lives. Sure, they're living better than we did when we started our life path together, which is what all parents want. What we aren't told is no matter what's going on with them, we'll still worry. I remember when I was middle-aged, and my mother would worry about me. I thought she was nuts. I had been taking care of myself for a long time and didn't need her help, or so I thought. Now I totally understand where she was coming from. She was retired; what else did she have to do? I have found out one thing...I've turned into my mom. That's not necessarily a bad thing but let me tell you–retirement is hard. I'll take it.