Images by John 'K'

My Tired Eye, originally uploaded by Images by John ‘K’.

You can tell a lot about a person by looking them in the eye. In this case you can probably tell that this person (me) is tired. Tired of stress at work, tired of pressures at home, and tired of worrying about what the future will bring.

By this stage in my life I’d expected to be free of the responsibilities of small children at home, and for that matter I was hoping that my kids would have all left home, but it’s not to be. My two youngest daughters (both at an age where their mum and I were living in our own place building our own family) are still living at home, and add to that the fact that one of them has a 16 month old daughter and will soon be bringing another baby into the world, and at times I find myself wondering if I’m just being taken for a ride.

I’m lucky enough to be in a fairly secure job that pays pretty well, but at a stage in my life where I should really be making sure I have a solid retirement plan, the money that should be getting set aside to help support my wife and I in our retirement is being spent on supporting a growing list of dependents, and so I find myself worrying about the future and whether we’ll be able to live without hardship in retirement.

There are times I feel like kicking my adult daughters out of the house and forcing them to make their own way in the world – it works in nature, and I know some people that would do it in a heartbeat… but something holds me back. Whether it’s concern for their safety, a fear for what it would do to our granddaughter (and soon to arrive grandson), or just something in my mind saying “now what would your mum have done – certainly not that” that stops me from doing it I don’t know… but I do know that while I don’t want to see them suffer unduly, I also don’t want to see our plans for a secure retirement go down the tubes because of the continued drain on our resources from having to continue to support them.

… so I’m going to take these tired eyes, and my wife, and get away from things for the weekend. Hopefully a quiet relaxing time away from all of the stresses and pressures will allow me to see things a little clearer.