more retirement blues

I read a worrying article this morning that sleep difficulties are highly correlated with dementia. I'm suffering with the former and worried about the latter.

I also know that my job at the bike shop is not an ideal match. I'm not doing the mechanical work I'd hoped to do, and the shop is built and designed to appeal to an upscale clientele (the owners dropped a LOT of money on rebuilding the old house that forms the front of the store, for example, and the merchandise is mostly all top-of-the-line stuff). I'm much more of a how-can-we-make-this-work, satisficing kind of guy. I worked for seven years in the insurance industry when I was newly out of college, and left that to work in substance-abuse and mental health, almost exclusively with indigents. I worked that career for more than half my life. And now I'm in a store catering to customers who can be described as "affluent or above". 

(I've also got to admit that there may have been a bit of "white, educated savior" thinking going on in my career with indigents. I'm not above some complicated egotism.)

I do admit that much of what I was looking for in the retirement job is new stuff to learn, and engagement with people who are not The Excellent Wife (TEW), because its not fair to put all my needs on her. The job is providing those things: I'm engaged with people, and I'm learning a lot, although it wasn't what I had planned to (or, frankly, hoped to).

I'm not great at this retirement thing.