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Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (Frank Lloyd Wright) Non-fiction pieces, personal essays and occasional poems that explore how we feel about how we age and offer tips for getting the most out of life.

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LIFE LESSONS

Retirement: Golden Years or Grey Days?

Three passions you can’t afford to ignore

6 min readMar 21, 2025

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Six weeks into retirement, the deafening silence hit me. No deadlines. No schedules. No annoying co-workers. Just an open expanse of time – with no structure.

Retirement was everything I had envisioned giving me the freedom to pursue my dreams. Creating a walled garden. Volunteering. Writing my life stories for my grandkids. Traveling and so much more.

But during this particular week, I stared out the window, watching the world go on… without me.

“Is this,” I asked myself, “what retirement is meant to feel like?”

This sluggish emptiness wasn’t new.

Before retirement, work, family, or obligations always snapped me back to getting on with things.

But now? With that safety net gone, the rug was being whipped from under my dreams.

Doing nothing was not the sort of freedom I wanted!

Grey days? Where do they come from?

They infiltrate through a random blip in our thoughts, catching us unawares. A disagreement, an idea or project that didn’t work out, a news item, or even a negative dream can challenge our fragile positive “love of life”…

Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

Published in Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (Frank Lloyd Wright) Non-fiction pieces, personal essays and occasional poems that explore how we feel about how we age and offer tips for getting the most out of life.

Philippa Richards, BBS, DMS
Philippa Richards, BBS, DMS

Written by Philippa Richards, BBS, DMS

Real stories and hard-won lessons to help you navigate love, change, and what's next. Bold wisdom for brave hearts on life's twisty path.

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