A year ago I was still working--my last few months--hanging on by the skin of my teeth, as the expression goes.

I was still giving work my full attention, but my leisure time was crowded with thoughts of the transition and the future. People kept asking me, "What are you going to do when you retire?" Remind me never to ask an about-to-be-retired person that question.

You may have plans, possibily vague, possibly so set in stone that you've already bought the tickets, but a life-changing event is in store and it does the retiree a disservice to put them in a corner like that. You don't really know what you're going to do or be.

Because the world opens up into a myriad of possibilities. Or narrows down into a frantic dance with illness and death. In any case, thinking that the future can be foreseen and controlled is a fantasy.

It's much more realistic, and kinder, to ask the person, the way you do a child, "What would you like to do?" Something more open-ended than asking for definite plans.

Anyway, here I am, a year later, in better health than I was when I retired, living with a boarder (isn't that what they are called?), mostly drifting in a relaxed kind of way, doing a lot of thinking and a lot of writing.

After 70 years of being driven, being organized, focused day to day on goals and tasks, it is lovely to be able to go with the flow.

I am so grateful to have lived long enough to enjoy it.