A decade into retirement, I wondered how I was doing.

                  Shakespeare counted seven ages in a person’s life; I figure three: youth – career – retirement. Youth and retirement occupy roughly twenty years each, our career double that.

                  If you’re affluent or broke, retirement may be an extension of what went before. You’re busy being important or paying the bills. For middling sorts, career and retirement may not resemble each other. During your career, work and family defined you; in retirement, preferences and whereabouts. Success in a career can be tallied; in retirement, it’s how you feel.

                  I’m happy to report I’m acing retirement. At youth and career, I did OK, but not great. Ups and downs, wins and losses, groans and grumps, groping for balance. Happy enough but not very, I did what I supposed I was supposed to, with occasional joy. No complaints but nothing, as the phrase goes, to write home about.

                  Retirement so far earns three lemons, a gush of psychic cash. Credit Jane, words, you. (“Hey, what about me?” Henry paws.)

                  “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” observes the Book of Proverbs: “but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.” No one plans to leave their best days till last, but if it happens, one greets each day with astonished gratitude.

                  My whole life, since age 16, I meant to make art, only I didn’t have the guts. Artists were losers in my parents’ set, unless they triumphed, and given the art I liked, what chance was there of that? I opted for the warped life we called normal, writing where I could, mostly in secret. Retired, I could write all the time – and did – every wakeful hour. Jane’s love and your attention allayed my phobic insecurity. (“Hey, what about me?” Henry paws.)

                  Writing made me a better writer. I relished the labor of it, the craft, regularity, sense of improvement. This pampered child of privilege preferred being a working stiff. (“I only write when inspiration strikes,” W. Somerset Maugham is said to have said. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”) A growing cadre of readers convinced me my words weren’t wasted. Our imploding nation elicited howls.

                  The more I said, the more I had to and the more I had to. I didn’t expect this bounty. I believed writers depleted themselves, writing themselves out. Some do. My world kept widening. There seems no end of seeing.

                  The more I saw, the nicer I got. Goodness, it turned out, wasn’t an outdated rule book, it made the world better. Morality was practicality. Truth, justice, decency, grace were society’s sinews, without which community couldn’t cohere. Beauty wasn’t just decorative, it was restorative.

                  Now I want to live forever. It grieves me when evening comes and my strength wanes. I am passionately attached to this life which feeds my work and this work which suffuses my life. (“Hey, what about me?” Henry paws.)

                  My moods oscillate. That is my nature. Always grateful, I am not always happy. Gloom grinds. I loathe our species and fear for our tomorrow. I whine. Shakespeare makes me feel better, a whiner sans pareil.

                  I rage my off-shelf date is so soon. Any day now, though that day be decades distant. The more we love, the harder to leave. My fervency attests to my success at this phase of my life. Invited to revise my past, I couldn’t suggest a single detail, even the grimmest, for they led me here – to Jane, my loves, you, words and their makers – and Henry, of course.