Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
My Year in Review
So it's almost one year since I retired, and entered anything into this blog.
It would seem that an update is in order. Or maybe by now I'm reviewing this whole retirement lifestyle and still working on its shape and content---and am I content with its content????
Well, I still watch my darling Rosie on Mondays. That's the only scheduled day in my week, and I need to "deal" with the rest of the week!
The unscheduled time also coincided with the gray, cold days of late November and the snowy days of early December. I don't need to battle the roads commuting to work--the good news. I still keep running into myself and the (sometimes) exciting prospect of open time and choices--the bad news!
During all the scripted days of my former life, I twisted and struggled against the confines of filled-in time, bursting with children and work and home stuff. I reminded myself then that I should celebrate every busy, lively moment of these "normal" days, for one day I may prove nostalgic and yearn for their return.
Not yearning for all that activity again, but I keep bumping into myself these days, without the barrier (or camouflage) of set-up, immutable things-to-do and places-to-go. I can do what I want, go where I want......this is a scary, unfamiliar sensation. An immediate reaction was to find a part-time job, somewhere to be and something to do that would be dictated by an outside force, almost beyond my control.
But my confused insides are telling me that the job-thing is not the answer. I still want the flexible time in my days to be available to the grandbabies and my kids, to take a few continuing ed courses, to plumb my shaky depths for what lurks there.
And what lurks there will be splattered all over this blog.
There---already a new game plan!
It would seem that an update is in order. Or maybe by now I'm reviewing this whole retirement lifestyle and still working on its shape and content---and am I content with its content????
Well, I still watch my darling Rosie on Mondays. That's the only scheduled day in my week, and I need to "deal" with the rest of the week!
The unscheduled time also coincided with the gray, cold days of late November and the snowy days of early December. I don't need to battle the roads commuting to work--the good news. I still keep running into myself and the (sometimes) exciting prospect of open time and choices--the bad news!
During all the scripted days of my former life, I twisted and struggled against the confines of filled-in time, bursting with children and work and home stuff. I reminded myself then that I should celebrate every busy, lively moment of these "normal" days, for one day I may prove nostalgic and yearn for their return.
Not yearning for all that activity again, but I keep bumping into myself these days, without the barrier (or camouflage) of set-up, immutable things-to-do and places-to-go. I can do what I want, go where I want......this is a scary, unfamiliar sensation. An immediate reaction was to find a part-time job, somewhere to be and something to do that would be dictated by an outside force, almost beyond my control.
But my confused insides are telling me that the job-thing is not the answer. I still want the flexible time in my days to be available to the grandbabies and my kids, to take a few continuing ed courses, to plumb my shaky depths for what lurks there.
And what lurks there will be splattered all over this blog.
There---already a new game plan!
Monday, January 05, 2009
PLAYING THE RETIREMENT CARD
So my new lifestyle begins today--January 5, 2009. I've left my full-time job at the Huntley Library, after ten fine, fulfilling years. I'm "nannying"my three-month-old granddaughter Rosie (Rosetta Bell, if you please) two days a week--Monday and Tuesday for delicious starters to my newly invented lifestyle.
Somehow "fixed income" conjures up images of advanced aging, stooped shoulders, walkers...not at all the way I look or feel...nor do millions of my contemporaries. Can 65 be the new 55 (at least)? I'd like to bargain down to 45, but I'm content.
And "content" is the operative word...a startling new concept to twirl around my day, my psyche, my life. During most of my pre-retirement life, I was the "destination addict" defined recently on an Oprah show about happiness. I always had a future goal, a destination, which I NEEDED in order to be "perfectly happy". Only problem was that when that trip had ended, and I pulled into the station, all was not perfect...I was still stuck with my "excess baggage" ..and the only thing which had changed was my location...whatever destination I had recently acquired: college degree, husband, kids, slimmer body, great job. wonderful house, perfect climate, blah, blah, blah.
It took about 55 years of angst and maneuvering and bargaining with the universe to finally arrive at the generic destination of BE PRESENT FOR YOUR LIFE/LIVE IN THE NOW. I was lucky that I arrived before I had fallen off the earth!
And magic happened around my life---I slowly found joy because I was no longer pursuing it. I started "savoring" instead of gulping...looking instead of leaping...and slowly joy and "right living" came trickling in.
I found the (near) perfect job for me, I returned back to the Chicago area after a fruitless quest for perfection in a distant "nice climate", I found peace of mind in living alone as a widow, my two sons found amazing women as wives, and the past year, the miracle of two incredible(of course) grandbabies graced our family.
And all when I was just enjoying my life instead of forcing it--my life formed around me beautifully even as I just dwelled within it, instead of frantically chipping here, and tweaking there, and mostly sobbing through my days.
We have always been told that money is not the key to happiness, but there I would be, buying a lottery ticket when I felt most down about one of my (pre-library) jobs....yet it is well documented that lottery winners are not all that much happier after they've won. And all those wealthy celebrities who fight to keep marriages and themselves together---it never really made any sense.
I'm starting to think there's something to that idea that we shape our own lives by the very way we live it and view it.
Was it always that simple?
Somehow "fixed income" conjures up images of advanced aging, stooped shoulders, walkers...not at all the way I look or feel...nor do millions of my contemporaries. Can 65 be the new 55 (at least)? I'd like to bargain down to 45, but I'm content.
And "content" is the operative word...a startling new concept to twirl around my day, my psyche, my life. During most of my pre-retirement life, I was the "destination addict" defined recently on an Oprah show about happiness. I always had a future goal, a destination, which I NEEDED in order to be "perfectly happy". Only problem was that when that trip had ended, and I pulled into the station, all was not perfect...I was still stuck with my "excess baggage" ..and the only thing which had changed was my location...whatever destination I had recently acquired: college degree, husband, kids, slimmer body, great job. wonderful house, perfect climate, blah, blah, blah.
It took about 55 years of angst and maneuvering and bargaining with the universe to finally arrive at the generic destination of BE PRESENT FOR YOUR LIFE/LIVE IN THE NOW. I was lucky that I arrived before I had fallen off the earth!
And magic happened around my life---I slowly found joy because I was no longer pursuing it. I started "savoring" instead of gulping...looking instead of leaping...and slowly joy and "right living" came trickling in.
I found the (near) perfect job for me, I returned back to the Chicago area after a fruitless quest for perfection in a distant "nice climate", I found peace of mind in living alone as a widow, my two sons found amazing women as wives, and the past year, the miracle of two incredible(of course) grandbabies graced our family.
And all when I was just enjoying my life instead of forcing it--my life formed around me beautifully even as I just dwelled within it, instead of frantically chipping here, and tweaking there, and mostly sobbing through my days.
We have always been told that money is not the key to happiness, but there I would be, buying a lottery ticket when I felt most down about one of my (pre-library) jobs....yet it is well documented that lottery winners are not all that much happier after they've won. And all those wealthy celebrities who fight to keep marriages and themselves together---it never really made any sense.
I'm starting to think there's something to that idea that we shape our own lives by the very way we live it and view it.
Was it always that simple?
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