You think you’ll have all the time in the world when you retire. People—family, friends, and casual acquaintances—ask, “What will you do with yourself? Will you take up a hobby? Travel?”
“No,” you say. You don’t think so. You’re going to do nothing. You are going to lay in the hammock talking on the phone and eating bon bons.
And for awhile you don’t take on anything new, but your days are full anyway. You learn about time and yourself as your activities expand to fit the time allotted. You slow down.
The garden becomes weed-free, the mulch pile gets deployed, and you add another weekly walking date to your calendar. But you never do get around to napping or day-reading, although you sometimes make calls from the hammock. No bon bons.
When the barn door opens, spilling out opportunities to ride, you have to make room. And then you join the gym. Now you are scurrying again, choosing time wisely, determined to hit all the high notes.
But you have the time because you are retired. Keep saying it and it will feel true. And you wish you could go back and answer the question put to you by so many when you first retired. “I’m getting back into horses,” you’d say, clear-eyed, and standing tall.
6 replies on “What I didn’t know when I retired”
So true Camille! I do occasionally fit in a nap, but it doesn’t happen that often. But you do slow down and I have taken up quilting which I absolutely love and I still don’t have enough time for that. Hope you are well and that you make it back to Shippensburg to have lunch with us sometime Rae Ann Finkey Myers
Hi Rae Ann. Thank you for all the work you do to keep the SASH class connected. The quilts can wait.
The thing I love about my retirement is that I get to spend so much more time at the office…
But it’s a really nice office, you have to admit.
I think I’m busier now than when I was working
Ha hah! It does seem that way some days, today being one of them. I can hardly catch my breath!