When I was growing up I rarely met anyone else with the same first name and probably didn’t meet another non family who spelled our last name properly.
Yeah, you double LL people to give up the last name or learn to spell it correctly, there is one ‘L’ and don’t get me started on the people who substituted an ‘M‘ instead of the ‘N‘ that is supposed to be there.
Anyhoo, somewhere around 12 years or so ago I discovered there are a few more guys named Josh Wilner online and to the best of my knowledge there is only one who is older than I am.
That is not based upon scientific knowledge or peer reviewed studies so when I say I the real Josh Wilner I am sure at least one will protest, perhaps the college professor will claim age and first come, first served status.
I of course will not acknowledge any such claim and point out that the Wilner accords of 1674 held in a small shtetl in Vilna support my claim, not that any of this matters.
Nor will I tell you the full story of the person who tried to do research upon me online and found the college professor for no other reason than my focus is elsewhere.
Not long ago I had what has become a common discussion among my peers, “Retirement plans.”
For most of us the day is still quite a ways off and these conversations consist of “Do I really have another decade or two of grinding it out left?”
The answer typically is yes because our oldest kids are barely into college and there are younger ones at home still.
Our collective reality is that we are no longer young enough to think about retirement as being far away because of age and now we look at it and think ‘maybe one day soon.’
But that one day isn’t just mitigated by children, it is made more challenging by trying to figure out how long we might live and how much we think we will need.
Even those of us in decent health acknowledge that can change and wonder what we can do to help make it easier.
That guy on the toilet represents our fears that our plans for how to handle something routine will fall apart at the most inopportune time.
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One of the things that throws me about a few of these conversations is listening to people include their current spouse as part of their retirement plans.
Why?
Because they have shared laundry lists of reasons why they don’t like their husband/wife any more.
Because they have said they have stuck it out for the kids and so I scratch my head and wonder if that means they are afraid to to make a change or if their past comments weren’t an accurate representation of their true feelings.
One can debate the merits of love and being in love with their partner. If you tell me being in love ebbs and flows I can understand that, but I don’t understand staying with people you don’t like.
That seems like a terrible choice, but that is me…the real Josh Wilner.
And let’s not forget that my father’s walk into the cornfields to play ball with Shoeless Joe has impacted my view upon all sorts of stuff.
The fifth day of the big change will roll around tomorrow morning and if all continues as it has I’ll wake up feeling a little overwhelmed and a little excited.
But I’ll finish the day feeling like I made the right choice and confident that my time is now, not just because I am due but because I worked for it.
I made my own luck.
Intermixed and in between I’ll remind myself not to put the cart before the horse and to not get too high or too low.
Follow Satchel Paige’s advice and take the middle road because modifying expectations is a good way to go.
But there will come times throughout it all where I feel ecstatic because I hadn’t realized how deep, dark and dank the prior hole was.
Because I found a way to climb out and am enjoying the warmth of the sun upon my back and seeing opportunity knock in a way I haven’t in years.
Walking with a jaunty step and some swagger–I can make a Shmata feel/look new again.
Or so I feel tonight, tomorrow might be different or maybe not.
Not going to worry about that, going to ride this train for as long and as hard as I can because it feels good to be reminded about such things.
And that dear reader is all I have to say about it on this page and post. Might be more elsewhere, but for now this is the real Josh Wilner saying good night.
