Good morning, Retirees, spouses of Retirees and children of Retirees, who will soon start getting a lot more phone calls in the middle of weekdays.
I can see from the looks on some of your faces you’ve been waiting a long time for this moment. I can see that, like a child on a long car ride, you’ve spent years asking yourself, your spouse, and your accountant, “Are we there yet? How about now … are we there yet?”
A few others look less certain. You’ve been on the road to retirement just as long but rather than feeling a sense of arrival, it’s more like all of your tires blew out and you’re trying your best to make it seem like the shoulder of the expressway is where you planned to stop all along.
And then there’s a very small percentage of you — I don’t know, let’s call it 1% — who entered retirement territory a while ago but decided it’d be more fun to just keep driving. And your friends and family were like, “What are you doing?” And you were like, “I just want to drive a little more.” And they were like, “But we really don’t get much time with you.” And you secretly thought, “That’s why I like driving so much!”