Patching things up until I retire.

Clearing a fallen tree... "When I retire...!"
Yesterday I chopped up a couple of trees that had fallen on the back fence. One had fallen and obviously had brought down the other squashing the fence to the ground. It has been sitting like this for some time because I only get one day off a week and don't get much time to do things around home. But, my wife pointed out, Mary and Joseph, our two goats were getting out and going exploring neighbouring properties. As I fixed the fence I could not help but remember erecting it in the first year of moving here in 1987 - 26 years ago. We had no spare money... at one stage it was actually true that we had no money! I built the fence out of old bits of wood, posts and wire we discovered sitting around the acre. It has lasted 25 years. Bits of the wood have rotted and it looked pathetic smashed on the ground. A new fence is really needed. I don't have time to build a new fence now, so I just patched it up.... when I retire I will build a new one. I look around our sorely neglected acre and the buildings we have and they are just holding together... when I retire I will fix them, sort out the garden and get things neat again. Just now I can only do the minimum. 
It is a bit like that with my health and well being. I feel like I am just holding together. I have my plumbing problems but I used to be fit. Now I am just getting by, with no time to exercise consistently. When I retire...!   I feel emotionally drained. I have bad dreams which I think are an accumulation of all the emotional stress of the stuff I have been doing. Its a bit like Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I have sort of "flashbacks" to some stressful situations, funerals, encounters, debates etc. When I retire I will sort it out.  My life seems to be getting busier. A couple of Night Shelter Trust people have resigned and I am getting left with their work. (When the going gets tough ... ???) It is hard to keep things going as well as push ahead with plans for the future. At the Church a congregation of older people growing older has meant that I do a heap of things an average minister does not have to worry about.  In the early hours of the morning when I ought to be asleep my mind goes flat tack trying to sort out the way ahead, particularly in Night Shelter issues. The stupid thing is I am too tired the next day and drag myself around listlessly. When I retire ....life will be easier.  I hope everything around the house and in me holds together until I retire! Thats why when people try to suggest things for me to do in retirement I say "no".  I have so much in life just to catch up on, before I make other plans when I retire. Six months to go!
Sad but nice too.
There is a young chinese man who has come to the drop-in centre and to Space2B who I play table tennis with. I have assisted him at various times in his life when he has had issues. I had a phone call from a medical centre the other day and they wanted to check up on where he lived. It turned out I was listed as his contact person, or "next of kin"! I was surprised. I must be important to him. I thought for a while, "That's nice!" but then I thought how sad that he has nobody else other than an aging minister - no family - no friends who he's closer to, no partner - just me, the guy he likes to beat in table tennis. Then I thought - "What's he going to do next year?" Then I'll be retired! Maybe he and I can go tramping just as two mates? Maybe I can go to a table tennis club with him?