I always assumed I’d retire at 65. That was the number, the magic number, the one they tell you when you’re young, when you’re too busy destroying your body and your mind with whatever you can get your hands on to care about things like pensions or investment portfolios. I figured I’d be done by then, some weathered version of myself walking through an airport in an expensive, shapeless sweater, off to some mind-numbing coastal town where people wear white linen and drink two fingers of bourbon on porches that smell like money and salt. But then I hit 65, and the only thing I could afford was more work.
