August 19, 2016
Dear Everyone:
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been
retired for five
years now. Where does the
time go?
When I was working, I had to constantly keep track of my time.
This quarter-hour goes to this charge code, that quarter-hour
goes to that one. I even had
a time matrix to keep track of whose “clock” I was on at any given point
in the day.
Now it doesn’t matter. Spent
an hour crocheting a tiny sweater?
Doesn’t matter. Spent
two hours on ARMA?
Doesn’t matter.
Watching
Brigadoon
on the
DVR while paying bills?
Doesn’t matter. Except that
getting the bills done really is important.
But other than that, my time really is mine to do with as I please.
This does take some getting used to.
When I first started with this “retirement thing”, I knew that
there would be some “phases” to go through.
Phase One: The
Honeymoon.
“I’m free! I’m free!
I can do anything I want!”
Take a Trip Around the World!
Sign up for a dozen classes at the local Community College!
Redecorate the entire house!
Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer!
I’ve heard retired people exclaim: “How did I get all this done back
when I was working all day?”
Answer: You didn’t, because
working all day kept you from overloading yourself with Other Stuff.
But now, there’s no limit.
Phase Two: Is This All There
Is? Once the thrill of All
This Free Time wears off, you start to ask yourself, “Is this what I’m
going to be doing for the next twenty years?”
That’s a lot of slippers to
crochet.
And who’s going to wear them all?
Phase Three: I’ve forgotten
what Phase Three was going to be.
Maybe that’s the point where you realize that this really is the
Reward for all those Years of Hard Work.
When it’s time to wake up in the morning, there’s no Rush! Rush!
Rush! to get ready for work before the sun is even up.
There’s no longing for the weekend when I can simultaneously
revel in the opportunity to relax and run around trying to finish all
the chores that were put off until the weekend because I was too busy
with work to get them done before it.
Ah, yes. Retirement is like
Vacation only without the deadline.
In other news…
We’ve had a bumper crop of
wild turkeys
this year. There’s a troupe
of nearly one-and-a-half-dozen that show up fairly regularly around
here. Several females
(“Mommy Turkeys”) accompanied by a whole boatload of youngsters.
When they hatch, baby turkeys are adorably cute.
They look rather like a really fluffy
football precariously perched atop a pair of
stilts, with a
supremely long neck that they can hardly hold up.
Then, in next to no time, they fill out and grow up to become
“teenager turkeys”, eager to try their wings and rather startled to
discover themselves in a tree.
(“Hey! There’s
nothing to eat up here!
What’s the big deal anyway?”)
Now they’re just about the right age to tell Mom off and set out on
their own. “Plenty of
grassland out there. The
world is my oyster! (Query:
What’s an oyster?)”
In the meantime, they’re quite happy to stop by my patio and fill up on
leftover birdfeed that’s spilled onto the ground.
Seriously, there’s no real hurry to grow up around here.
After all, I haven’t grown up yet, and I’m already Retired.
Love, as always,
Pete
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