Retired, Finally !!

I am new to this thing of blogging but here goes. I have thought about this blog or ones similar to it to find out how the rest of the world is doing with their retirement in the early stages and maybe even get some pointers how to enjoy it even more.
After over 45 years of working high stress and very demanding jobs I thought it was time and I had some money put away and some in my house so I decided to DO IT. After about 6 months the market fell, housing prices fell and my budget went haywire. I am not sorry I finally pulled the plug as I was burnt out and ready. I worked in the Transportation industry, went to sea as a Deck Officer for about 8 years then worked for trucking companies (both freight and tankers) for almost 40 years. It was good and although the pay wasn't the greatest it was good and never a dull moment. the bad part was the long hours, 12 hour shifts most of the time, working nights and weekends and holidays and almost always on call 24 hours a day. I actually didn't realize how bad it was until I had stopped. WOW, very demanding.
People ask me if I miss work or start to head for work from habit and I tell them NO!!. I had a lot of good times but some bad moments too. The last couple years I was working my wife was very sick and I took care of her and worked 12 hour shifts at night. When she passed away about 4 years ago I continued working and after a couple years I realized how lonely life had gotten and I tried to get out in the world again. The bar scene was not for me, being in my 60's, and the gals my friends introduced me to just didn't do it for me. I did go out with a gal about 66 for a while and it seemed ok but then I just didn't feel comfortable with her. We liked similar things, enjoyed talking and watching TV and going for day trips but I wasn't real comfortable being out with her. I finally decided to stop seeing her.
I was on the computer one day and an ad for eHarmony popped up. I figured, what the hell, and started filling out a profile/application. Little did I know that it was going to take quite a bit of time to answer all the questions and fill in the blanks. It seemed like I was going thru page after page but I got real stubborn I said I was going to finish it. When I submitted it they said they would match me with mates of similar interests in my area, so I just waited. Then the matches started coming in. Some did match my idea of a nice date and maybe a "possibility" and some were rejects right off. Although I was 65 I felt a lot younger and most of the women my age seemed too old. It seems like I started being more interested in women 55-60 years old. eHarmony has a pretty good system of matching people and I think if you are honest in your questions and answers it works good. The matches kept coming in, at one time I had 122 matches, and I realized I had to be a little more picky and eliminated any that were not just right. I conversed back and forth a few times with a few of them and we, either she or I, would decide to stop or continue to go on.
To make a long story short, one weekend I had set up 4 dates for the weekend (thank goodness it was a holiday 3 day weekend) and met with some of the matches I had been emailing. All was going well, Friday night was good, Saturday night was real good and then Sunday afternoon's date set off the fireworks. I won't say it was love at first sight but we sure did hit it off. We met at Starbuck's for coffee and after talking for over an hour we went next door to have a soup and salad and talk for about 2 more hours. We planned to meet the following weekend and we went on from there.
Now you are probably asking, What the heck does this have to do with retiring??, and the answer is this chance meeting was the start of something big and gave me a reason to retire. We continued to go out and saw more and more of eachother and about 4 months later I decided to retire and gave my boss notice that I was going to retire. I told him I was going to retire and gave him 8 months notice so he could find a replacement. I figured my job was not a real popular job and finding a replacement might take some time, I was a terminal manager for a trucking company.
The closer I got to the big day, the more I looked forward to retiring and trying to live a rgular life. I did all the work and did not slack off the responsibilities but was sure planning for and looking forward to that great day. The last week I worked I was told not to really do anything except help my replacement and get him up to speed to take over my job. This was very boring since he had been training with other terminal managers for a couple months. I stuggled thru the long week and finally Friday came and after saying goodbye to everyone that I worked with I left work a couple hours early with my boss's blessing.