Scaling the Walls to Escape the Barbarians

I'm preparing for my retirement. It won't be for another twenty years or so, but I figure I should get started on it now. Truth be told, I started planning for my retirement when I was in my teens, but now I'm going to transition from the "What I'd like to do" to the "What I'm going to do" phase.

What I'm going to do when I retire is primarily hang out with my friends. Why? Because I like my friends. I like people in general, but I really like my friends. That's why they're my friends (Oooh what an intellect, eh?)

I enjoy the friendships of a wide variety of people, old and young, near and far. I'm lucky that way. Some of my friends are like me in that we share the same sense of adventure, the same taste in literature, appreciation for technology, etc.

Then there are those people I consider friends who I have almost nothing in common with - we are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, have none of the same CD's in our music collections, think each other dresses funny, etc.

And there are those with whom I'm right smack dab in the middle - like the same films, hate each others choices in television shows. Share the same fiscally conservative values, can't understand what the other is thinking in terms of morality.

All of those people are very important to me. All of them add to my life immeasurably. Their opinions, beliefs, lifestyles, hobbies, indiscretions, etc., all give me pause for reflection, celebration, observation, pause...what have you.

Some of my friends I see almost every single day, some I see only once a week or once a month. Some I see once a year or even less often than that. However, the amount of time I spend with friends is not an actual indicator of how much I like being with them - it's generally just an indication of geography - how close they live to me and I to them. There are several of my friends that I do not get to see nearly often enough, and there are some I see often, but would still love to spend even more time with.

That's because I like them. I have been very fortunate in life in that I have met a wide variety of interesting people who have decided that I'm fit for their friendship. It's really the best part of my life.

So what does having friends of all stripes that I like to hang out with have to do with planning my retirement? Well, I've decided that what is going to be important for me to be able to enjoy my friends in my retirement is a home with a fairly large area for entertaining - I have a nice deck right now, but I think I'll need to expand it, add some built-in seats. I have two small entertaining areas in the house, but I think I want to remodel the home to combine those two areas into one great room, with plenty of seats and a nice built in bar.

Yeah, that's what I want to do. So that's what I'm going to do. It'll probably take the entire twenty years or so that I have until retirement to do it.