It feels right and true to be retired. It is what I am. I have no trouble saying 'I'm retired.' It was more trouble before to explain what I did (and didn't) do. I am even a little miffed when I have to explain what I retired 'from.' If I start other gainful employment in the future, I will be happy to go back to discussing it. If.
A number of things have changed or happened or just seem to be facts of this life.
I exercise more. There is a lot to that business of office and knowledge work being too sedentary. I know lots of people use the gym at my old work place, take walks or runs or bike rides at lunch and do active things after and before work. I've been known to do those things myself over the thirty-two years I worked (if you don't count college). I just didn't do it as regularly or with the same tenacity. Which is not to say I don't spend time sitting. I just do spend some time each day moving. I've lost five pounds and feel stronger. I look the same, though.
I spend more time doing errands and domestic chores. I am home more and mess things up that I have to then clean up. We eat at home more. Cook. Wash dishes. I do some things FFP used to do just because he worked from home.
I shower less. Going to work always seemed like a good reason to shower. Even if I'd showered the night before I needed it to wake up and get going and get my hair to behave. Now I wander all over town in sweats that are sweaty with hair going in several directions (that's a style, isn't it?). If we are going out, I shower. Otherwise, I wait until I really feel I need one. I also find I spend a lot of time in sweats, TShirts, sweat shirts. I often wore jeans to work before so it's not like this is a huge switch. I'm just even more sloppy.
I never get the paper read. Papers actually. I thought I would. But I always work on the journal first thing and then events take me. I also thought that I would sit in coffee shops reading the papers and watching people. I haven't been in coffee shops except with the eXtreme dog walking team and then I'm talking to SuRu. It doesn't help that I traveled and got behind.
I read more books. But not as many as I thought I would. I read on the exercise bicycle and when traveling. Other times here and there. Trying to read the papers gets in the way. I'm a slow reader. I took a speed reading course in 1967 and I could do it but I hated reading fast. I also thought I'd have time the read The New Yorker. It's about the only magazine we get anymore that I'm interested in reading. It comes every week. Every week! And there is usually stuff I'm interested in reading in each issue. I think we get Harper's, too. I actually like that one, too. My current bathroom reading is the 1994 Summer Fiction issue of The New Yorker. I found it in the closet of my office. Shut up. But it does make you appreciate why I'm so, so behind in my reading.
I haven't written anything. Unless you count the journal. And I don't. Or an ABC book for my great nephew. And I don't. I have outlined very briefly some short stories and given a lot of thought to how they are going to shape up. We will see.
I shop more and more slowly. But I buy less. I carefully consider the things I'm buying. I'm trying to down size and I have a budget that requires some consideration. But I spend more time looking, considering. And I sometimes shop for groceries instead of almost always pushing this off on FFP. He still does more than his share.
I am traveling more and thinking about travel. I have actually been gone around fifteen or twenty per cent of the time so far. I have already planned one trip for next year and have four or more in mind.
I am more jealous of my time than ever. I was much more tolerant of my time being wasted, at work and at home, before. Go figure.
I feel like a fresh young kid sometimes. I feel like I am 'just starting out' and have lots of choices to make and possibilities. Of course, other times I feel like the dried up old lady that I really am.
I don't seem to be making all that much progress on the 'To Do' list. It is growing at the end, of course. And some of the things are very ambitious. (Learn to use digital video camera and make two documentary films. I'm kidding. Sort of.) Still I have lots of time and I should be more productive.
I don't spend as much time outside as I thought I would. When it's a nice day, I may still find myself indoors for most of it. I no longer feel anxious about this, though.
I becoming more reclusive. You would think that without the social aspect of work that I would need to replace that. Instead I'm happy to be on my own a lot. Working out alone (FFP and I don't even seem to go to the club at the same time), shopping alone, sitting in my office alone, working in the yard alone. I'm pretty good at being alone. And I like it and it doesn't worry me. Having said that, FFP is always there if I need him and he and the dog and I always eventually land in the big bed at night. I do social things, we go out, I have lunch with people. But I am spending time alone, thinking. I like it. It doesn't scare me. Really.
So. Now I enter the second three months. I've done a lot of the stuff that Mom's affairs entailed. It may be time to take a hard look at that 'to do' list, set some structure and accomplish some things. Being retired is no picnic, you know.