Mary Hunt - The Smart Womans Guide to Planning for Retirement: How to Save for Your Future Today

Never ask, Can I do this? Instead ask, How can I do this?

LaRae Quy

I was mostly daydreaming when it hit. It was an emotional jolt with the sensation I would expect from being struck by lightning. Id been gathering data and statistics in preparation to write this book, but at that moment my heart was not in it.

I considered approaching the subject with humor. I was thinking of pithy zingers like, I will never be over the hill. Im too tired to climb it! Or, Middle age: that time when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart! And Id lobby hard for this title: Real Women Dont Have Hot Flashes; They Have Power Surges!

That still makes me laugh.

As I was thinking about all of this while rummaging through websites and publications relating to retirement, the official sign-up window for Medicare applicants caught my attention. On a lark, I decided to figure out the month and year that I, your humble, much younger author, would be ready to hang it up and prepare for the end.

There I was, sitting at my desk, half staring out the window, thinking to myself that every car in the parking lot was black, and working on a mental grocery list. Thats when I got a rush of adrenaline that made my heart pound.

Calm down, I told myself. I must have put in the wrong birth year. Yeah, that had to be it.

I started over and came up with the same result. I couldnt believe it. Nine months from that exact day my window of opportunity to sign up for Medicare would open. Nine months! Thats 270 days. It might as well have been the next day for how close it felt.

Let me explain something. Its not like I dont know my age. And yes, I am aware that Medicare is for people who have reached the age of threescore and five. But this was the first time in my life that those two facts converged on the highway of life, with my name splattered all over the collision.

For the longest time I just sat there, stunned. Why didnt I see this coming? Its not like I hadnt thought about retirement or even made a few plans here and there. But it was always so far awaylike in another lifetime. I would deal with it later at a more convenient time. Why waste my youth worrying or planning for something over which I had no control?

When finally I could speak, I informed my husband.

Ive entered the sunset of my life, I said.

What brought that on?

Nine months... I have only nine months before my final act.

And in my mind, I became a fully developed senior citizen.

My wake-up call was not the kind of gentle tap on the shoulder your mom might give you to let you know that dinner is ready. Im talking about a kind of wake-up call that blasts you out of a sound sleep, sets your heart racing, and puts your mind into overdrive. My emotions were all over the place. Fear, panic, dreadyou name it. If it was an unpleasant feeling, I had it in spades.