The 66-year-old U.S. senator is weighing whether to run for re-election or try something new.
He says he might teach or write a civics textbook. He would also like to spend more time with his 10 grandchildren and "continue the wonderful romance with my wife."
The Florida Democrat says he is healthy and rejuvenated by last winter's heart surgery, but he is realistic about his life expectancy.
"For the average American male, you have about 15 years (to live) after you reach 65," Graham said Tuesday.
His unsuccessful presidential campaign has not soured him on politics. He said he still "gets a lot of gratification" from being in the Senate.
"The question is, is this what I want to do for, basically, the rest of my life?"
As Graham sat in his office Tuesday afternoon, a staffer briefed him on a bureaucratic snag that had stalled his bill to preserve land in the Apalachicola National Forest. He cursed at the delay and gave the staffer a few directions to resolve the problem.
Graham, a former governor who has been in the Senate 17 years, said that kind of work makes his job very satisfying.
"I still like it," he said. "I would like to be able to tell my grandchildren as we go to this tract in the Apalachicola National Forest that their granddaddy played a role in keeping it the way it looked 500 years ago."
He has spent the past few weeks getting advice from friends and advisers about whether to run again.
Buddy Shorstein, a Jacksonville accountant who is one of the senator's closest friends, says he believed several weeks ago that Graham would retire.
"I just had the impression that he had decided to do something else with the balance of his life," Shorstein said.
That has changed "significantly" since Graham has been back at the Capitol a few weeks, Shorstein said. He seems more interested in running for re-election. "But how much, I don't know."
John Robert Middlemas, another longtime friend, said Graham is keenly aware of his age.
"He knows what his life expectancy is - 15 to 18 years. He also knows the next six are the best six," said Middlemas, a former legislator from Panama City.
Middlemas says Graham wants to spend more time with his grandchildren but that "serving six more years in the Senate has real appeal to him."
Middlemas says he and Graham have also discussed the possibility of the senator teaching at the University of Florida or the University of Miami. No formal offers have been made, but Middlemas said he expects the two colleges would be eager to have Graham on their faculty.
Middlemas said Graham probably will announce his decision in the next five or six days.
The wait for Graham's decision has left Democratic candidates for his seat in limbo. They have lost a month of fundraising while Republican candidates have been gathering steam - and money.
"My gut tells me he's going to not run for re-election, but I wouldn't put any money on it. I think it's a 51-49 call," said U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Lauderhill.
Former Education Commissioner and University of South Florida president Betty Castor of Tampa expects Graham to make a decision this week but said she and other candidates will become exasperated if he waits much longer.
"If he's going to run, (his campaign) needs to get organized and the rest of us need to find something else to do," Castor said. "If he's not going to run, then we need to get going. The election is a year away."
Graham said he was "grappling" with the decision. He joked that he believed in reincarnation, but that "for this round" of his life, he had to make a decision.
"There are a lot of things I want to do in my life, and I don't have enough life expectancy to do all of them."
- Times political editor Adam Smith contributed to this report.
