Where are the rats?
Retirement report: Week One
I am coming to you today from a new zone. There are no rats here. Or, at least, they are not yet discernible to me as rats. There are certainly people here. People for whom time is different. For whom the days have a rhythm of their own making. People who rise without aid and who close their days when they want.
It is a strange and wondrous zone this one. Still wholly unfamiliar to me, but one I am keen to befriend. I have entered it with a plan, though without a map. There is no map, of course. Each one who enters this zone arrives alone. We each find our way. We look to others. We take our cue from those more practiced in these ways. And we find our own. 
My feet are with me in this zone, but they are not yet firm beneath me. Though I have already learned it is possible to eat breakfast at noon on a Tuesday and to enjoy potato chips at 4pm any day. Not because a bell rings or a meeting is called. But just because. And that is wondrous.
My desk is spare. My bookshelf laden. My bike well used for rambles down trails heretofore unridden.If the former zone in which I dwelled was a race of rats and hamsters on wheels, then this new zone has neither clock nor gear. I still reach for both, but am keen to break those habits and introduce new ones. And surely they will include the occasional mid-afternoon snack of potato chips…
Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash
When I was working some very long hard days, I could manage my time to the minute. I found time to squeeze in a dental appointment over my lunch break, clean house and do the laundry and shopping on Saturday and prepare a sit down dinner for six on Sunday. I lived by lists of things to do. I crossed those off one at a time, and sometimes brought a few forward to the next day. My life was rich, regimented, and righteous!
ReplyDeleteAnd then I retired. After a few months of those three R's, I began to unwind. Soon I gave myself permission to read, rest, and relegate most things to another time. An appointment with the doctor or dentist or whatever became an all day affair. I spent the mornings getting ready and the afternoons recovering. Julie teased me about being able to do only one thing per day.
And then she retired.
Welcome to the ranks of delightful happy sometimes lazy not-very-productive women of a certain age.
Happy first week of retirement !
ReplyDeleteAmanda, you made me smile. With your positive attitude, you are taking the right road to enjoy your retirement.
Freedom must be tamed.