One of my regular “reads” is the Love & Money column by Jeff D. Opdyke. It is in the Sunday Business section of the Strib reprinted from the Wall Street Journal.

This week it was a comment on his families decision to explore hiring a cleaning person for their home. The basis of the story addressed how we spend our money and what our priorities are. I (as well as many others I am sure) have a difficult time separating the concept of spending money from the concept of spending time. Time truly is money and money does buy you time. The author’s conclusion was that they would spend some money on cleaning help which in turn would free up more of their time to spend with their kids. We budget our money and we budget our time and the two directly impact each other

The reason this is so relevant to me today is that I am in the midst of creating some new budgets due to my retirement. I have to do a new family budget due to a change in my personal financial status, a new business budget for my ministry project, and most challenging, a new time budget. The money stuff is quite tangible and in many regards “fixed”. However the time budget is wide open. I’ve got a lot of latitude in deciding how I will now spend my time. What are my days going to look like now that I’m no longer responsible to the city and the PD?

I don’t have the answers yet, this is my last week of my “retiring process” with four meetings scheduled between today and Friday when I get my final paycheck (or actually my final direct deposit pay notification. Just doesn’t sound the same does it?). So, I’m working on a plan, figuring time in and time out, time earned and time spent. But I am going to build in more “pause time” time for the spirit to refresh and rest. Some time set aside for spiritual fitness.

I know I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the subject of retirement lately, but let’s face it, that’s where my mind is at right now. As I talk about the subject, no one is as inundated with my reflections as my wife is. Sometimes I wonder if she is listening, but I don’t usually ask, I just appreciate her patience and her presence as I go through this transition process. But yesterday she showed me that she is processing this journey right along with me. I was doing some work in my new office and she called. Usually her calls are related to family scheduling issues, communicating plans, organizing to do lists and just checking in to chat. But this call was different.

She was doing her assigned reading for her book club and she read a line that she wanted me to hear. The book is “for one day more” by Mitch Albom, the “Tuesdays with Morrie” guy.

I haven’t read the book yet and don’t want to go into the story, but what I want to share is a short passage. The main character of the book tells the following story”

I met a man once who did a lot of mountain climbing. I asked him which was harder, ascending or descending? He said without a doubt descending, because ascending you were so focused on reaching the top, you avoided mistakes.
“The backside of a mountain is a fight against human nature,” he said. “You have to care about yourself on the way down as you did on the way up.”

Well, I’ve spent the past 25 years climbing the mountain of a law enforcement career. I’ve spent quite a bit of time planning my leaving, my descent, but that time is measured in months as opposed to the years I spent climbing. I guess I walked up the mountain and I ran down it. Not a great plan, but I guess it is better than just jumping off and crashing at the bottom.

To all of you out there on the job, give some thought to this analogy and think about how you are going to get off the mountain….and it is a big mountain….with a great view!

I got the following message from a fellow EPPD retiree the day after my retirement party. We grew up in the same south Minneapolis neighborhood. We have a long history and I always appreciate his friendship and his perspective.

“It is not what he has, nor what he does, which directly expresses the worth
of a man, but what he is.” Henri Frederic Amiel

We were Cops…it was cool…

I’m still right, you’re still wrong….enjoy…

See ya when you get back for coffee….

Like many of the people I’ve worked with, we didn’t always agree. One of the things that he always said has stuck with me for all of these years: “We need to be able to respectively disagree”.

Thanks Vern, I’ll call you this week!

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PS…

I thought I’d throw in a favorite photo from my Mexico trip. This is a shot of the marina in the dark. I took it from them bench where I had my morning coffee and I watched the fishing boats head out.