Exit, stage right... ah, if only

I've heard people say, “Begin with the end in mind,” and I apply that philosophy to many projects I undertake. But until this evening, I hadn't thought of applying it to the business I am launching. I've been so focused on taking immediate actions, making sure I'm tracking my quarter hours of frenetic activity, fretting over my logo, worrying about the first job... I haven't taken time to wonder, what about the last job? What about that moment when I say, I've had enough?

Now that the idea has been planted in my brain, I just want to skip to the end. I want to leap over all this busy detail, all this day-to-day fear, and get to the part where I hand the passwords to someone else as I'm waltzing out the door. So long, thanks for all the figs. Fish. Whatever.

I suspect I was born to retire. I take after my father. He retired at the first opportunity and defied the averages by living 25 smugly happy years, sitting on the couch watching basketball and complaining about my mother's cooking. Sometimes I would drive up and find him sitting in a lawn chair in the front yard, spraying passersby with the garden hose. Ah, what a life.

None of that sounds all that appealing to me, except the part about retiring. What would I do if I could retire today? Thanks for asking. If I were really a chip off the old paternal block, I would lay around watching romcoms and eating bonbons, maybe occasionally spritzing the cat with a bottle of water. But that wouldn't be my idea of retirement heaven. I think I would spend a lot of time just thinking. And I would make up stories and write them down. Screenplays, novels, whatever. And I would start painting again.

Huh. I don't want to think about this anymore. The angry magic child in me will rise up and threaten to cut our throat if I don't dust off the paintbox in the next five minutes. It does no good to try to reason with her; once she wakes up, she's a pitbull with her teeth sunk in the neighbor kid's leg. I've tried to explain to her that in this time and place, making art—writing or painting—is not respected or revered. In fact, making art is ridiculed or ignored. Who buys art but rich people and artists? Do you have art hanging on your walls? I mean art you didn't buy at Wal-Mart or at some yard sale?

So it doesn't matter that I was born to retire. Retirement for me is called die. It's good I've found a business idea that I actually like and that might actually make some money, if I keep at it. If I don't jump off a bridge first in a fit of frustrated creative pique.