Rule #4: Keep Counting

08/01/2025

Retirement Day #2222

M. Linda Graham

Several Years ago, I wrote a blog about the “why” behind my counting of retirement days [RD# 1331]. Since then, I’ve added 891 fulfilling retirement days to the count.

When I first started counting, people thought it was cute, rather funny & vaguely novel [kind’ve like me]. I'm still counting – the cute & funny has long worn off, although the vague novelty remains in a tenacious, melancholy & annoying way [also like me]. I'm no longer intent on making Captain Kirk proud [although that would be a lovely footnote], and I'm no longer trying to reconnect with my 9year old self [she’s living it up, thanks!]. 

But the true reason remains: every day counts, so I count every day.

In retirement, every day I wake up feels like my birthday, and we count birthdays, calories, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, etc. so why not retirement days? We humans crave timely markers, using them to calibrate our life’s progress while celebrating events & achievements. Somehow this helps us come to terms with the unrelenting, fleeting, irreversible passage of time. [*“We’re captive on the carousel of time….”]

But the REAL living of life happens in small, unscripted moments of ordinary grace, those improvised, joy-filled gifts from God. Do I think about death? Yes – every day. Knowing my time is limited outlines daily graces in silver. It’s the height of summer right now, and I want to make this summer- and every season- Count. [*“We can’t return, we can only look, behind from where we came….”] When my last moment of time comes, I want to be able to own my exit as surely as I own every day up to that moment. I want to be able to say “that went well.”

Yes, I’ll keep counting. Hope you do, too

*from ”Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell

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