Retirement isn’t always for the faint of heart.

For some, retirement comes naturally.

For others, you have to almost drag them away from their desks or work areas.

For everyone, though, I believe the secret to a successful retirement is the ability to stay busy with your days. The most important word in that previous sentence is “busy”, and how each one of us would define it.

For some, busy is being on the go 24-7.

For others, busy might be a trip to the barber followed by a stop at the hardware store to do a walk-around, just in case new items arrived since yesterday’s walk-around.

In my self-evaluation of retirement, for the most part, I believe I have found that “sweet spot” of busyness that works well for me and makes Diane and me happy.

That is not to say, though, there aren’t days. Take, for example, last Friday and Saturday. After addressing world problems, but solving nothing with my coffee klatch at Panera Friday morning, I returned home, worked a little, then my wife and I picked up lunch and shared it with my son at his office.

We returned to the condo, finished last-minute odds and ends, and headed to Sandusky to watch granddaughter number two in a dance competition that evening. Saturday morning found us in Sandusky again for round two of the competition. After watching her perform her number at 8:30 a.m., my wife and I hopped in the car to head to Perrysburg, where we watched granddaughter number one play soccer at 10:30 a.m.

After that game, it was quickly back into the car to speed (er, drive fast) down I-75 to Findlay and the high school, where said granddaughter number one had a lacrosse game at 12:30 p.m.

By the time this grandpa pulled into the garage 140 miles later Saturday afternoon, it was time for a nap.

While that scenario is not typical in the amount of activities in one day, none of my granddaughters let much grass grow under their feet.

Some days, as evidenced by the above, neither do their grandparents.

In the weeks ahead, my wife and I will travel to Indiana to spend several weeks with granddaughters numbers 3 and 4, where we will assist their parents with running to soccer and dance practices. Granddaughter number three plays on two different soccer teams, so there is a lot of time spent at either practices or games.

And, while my wife and I are in Indiana, granddaughters numbers one and three both will be within 10 miles of one another in Indianapolis at two separate soccer tournaments.

I expect the grandparents will spend most of their time bouncing back and forth between the fields, rooting each of them and their teammates on.

And when that happens, you will not hear me complaining one bit.

Our sons never had the opportunity to have their grandparents see any of their sports or extracurriculars in school. I think any good psychologist would tell you this explains all the attention Diane and I focus today on our grandkids.

When both of us were finally retired, we were in agreement that for the second half of our lives together, we wanted to be closer to grandkids. And while we don’t see our Indiana crew as much as we would like, we do see them a lot more than had we still been living in northern Michigan.

I may not be the smartest man in the room, but I have to believe our granddaughters will always know how much they were loved and supported by Diane and me.

For me, that is what retirement is all about.

Bill Speer retired in 2021 as the publisher and editor of The News. He can be reached at bspeer@thealpenanews.com.