For a lot of reasons, I haven’t given a lot of thought to life beyond my working years (other than diligently saving for retirement). I’m still fairly young. I don’t particularly like to think about having unstructured time! (I’m all about structure.) With my health issues, I haven’t always pictured myself living long enough or living with good enough health to really enjoy (or have choices about living during) my retirement. But, I also had a hard time imagining very far into the future when I clung so tightly to old dreams for my life. If I married and raised children, my entire future would be different from what I could ever imagine now, so those dreams required a “planning for all contingencies with total unknowns” mindset that is puzzling to deal with.
But lately, I’ve played around a lot with painting a picture of what life looks like if another path unfolds for me. And that imagining has extended into retirement, which is 30 or more years away. That’s a long time to dream ahead for! But I thought…let’s just suppose I don’t marry and don’t have children, and I’m healthy enough to have a fair amount of choice in what retirement looks like for me. What would I do?
At the same time as I’m imagining forward, I also had the recent experience of feeling so sad leaving Disney World. As we drove home from Disney World, I was actively trying to figure out a way to arrange life so that I could spend more time in Florida. And then these two ideas collided! Why had I never thought of this before? Especially given that I’ve had many relatives take this route. I could retire to Florida — at least for winters, if not year round. My grandfather did that! Several of my grandmother’s sisters did that. Mom’s cousin did that. My parents won’t be doing it, but I could! Why not?! I can’t imagine who would need me to stay in Michigan year-round 30 years from now.
So, I’ve got Plan B of life all planned out now, ending with retirement to Disney World. That just sounds like entirely too much fun. 
