I’ve done a lot of practicing for retirement out on the back porch lately.

Like this past Sunday afternoon. I stayed in town after church to get a haircut and take care of a few errands. After that I had to go out to the tree farm and hand water some trees in the holding area that were waiting to be shipped on Monday. When I finally got home it was nearly 4:00.

I thought about mowing the yard but decided against it. It was hot. I was tired. A retired guy would wait and catch it on a cooler morning. So, I practiced that.

Instead, I went out on the screened porch and turned on the ceiling fan. It was warm enough to make me think about going back inside where the air was cooler, but not hot enough to change my mind. The breeze was good. The shade was welcoming. Most importantly, the couch was inviting.

I sat down to read. Then I took my shoes off and got bear footed. Then I turned longways on the couch and got my legs stretched out. Then I scooted down a little more where only my head was propped up on the pillow.

When my son shook my shoulder and woke me up it was nearly 7:00. I’m a believer in the saying that practice makes perfect.

As I get closer to my final day at work, my mind stirs over a million scenes that make up the last 40 years of my life. The young man that I used to be and the older man that I have become. I see a lanky 21-year-old standing outside the church building right after the wedding. I feel the struggle of trying to figure out what to do with my life. Working a job and feeling like I wasn’t sure if “this” was it for me. Trying to make things work and thinking maybe I’m forcing a square peg into a round hole.

My dad was an important part of that process for me. I would come to some crossroad in life and find some excuse to go by the house and see him. We’d sit out in the back yard or maybe go for a walk across the farm. Eventually, I’d work up the courage to bring up what was really on my mind.

“I’m thinking about changing jobs. Doing something totally different.”

My dad was always what I considered a little nosey about the details of my life. He’d ask about how much money I had in the bank. How things were between me and Beth. Did I have enough life insurance. Was I saving a little money on the side for emergencies.

His examination of me got under my skin when he would probe like that. And if I’m honest, I didn’t like facing those questions because I was pretty much a failure at everything he wanted to know. His questions made me feel like a hopeless child.

Yet, I always came to him for advice. I hated to open that door, afraid that he might judge my decisions. I wanted to bounce my reasoning off him and have a man-to-man conversation about life, but deep down what I really wanted was for the boy to have the man tell him what to do.

He never did. Not on either account. I mean, he sure as the world never told me what to do with my life; and as far as I could tell, he never judged me for all my floundering ways. He’d ask a few questions, but he always left it up to me to make my own choices.

“Sounds to me like you’re doing the right thing. You’ll figure it out.”

From this end of my life, I admire what he did with his career more than I ever could have as a young man. He stayed with one job for 48 years. I used to think that it must have been easy for him. It seemed clear to me that he had made good choices and the work in the foundry was a good fit that suited him. What I know now is how much resolve it took to stay through all the changes, to take the bad with the good, and to find a way to make it all work.

I was naïve to think it was ever easy.

It is a profound mystery to me to find myself four and a half decades later where I am now. Nothing of what I have done with my life was part of a well-thought-out plan, at least not by me. Life unfolded. It uncoiled. I basically stumbled onto a path that found me as time passed.

A tree farmer. Who would’a thunk it forty years ago?

I could never have seen this version of me coming in a million years. In high school, I was going to be an airline pilot. In college, I was going to be a preacher. In life, it turns out that I found a version of myself that for all I know turned out better than any plan that I could have imagined.

Not because it was easy. Lawd knows it hasn’t been easy. Not because I was smart enough to figure it all out. There are days when I wish I could still take one of those walks with my dad and get his advice. There remains a boy inside this skin who is unsure of his future.

Which brings me back to the reason I’m practicing retirement.

I have no clue what the coming months will hold. I’m pretty sure naps are part of the plan. That much seems clear to me and is universally agreed upon by all who have way more experience with retirement than I do. I can easily imagine that everyday will feel like a Saturday, and pretty soon I’ll forget what day it is because there is no need to know. No time to report to work. No schedule other than the one I set for myself.

On Monday, July 3rd I will no longer be a tree farmer. I will not be defined by what I do. I will enter the ranks of the unincumbered. The unfettered. Perhaps the unhinged. I will be free of the ball and chain we call a job.

I will still work, but at the things I freely choose. I will still be accountable, but only in the way that matters for eternity. What I do with the rest of my life will hopefully be an extension of who I am, and I am hopeful that that is enough.

In some ways, retirement feels like a chance to start over. A little bit of anxiety mixed with a touch of excitement.

I found out years later, after I quit my job and started the tree farm, that my decision nearly worried my dad to death. Mr. Bill Winters told me so. “Your dad was so worried about what would happen to you.”

Well, Dad, I reckon I found myself then and I’ll find myself this time.

Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.