Another Saturday - They are All the Same to Me

A NEW LEARNING
It’s Saturday once again.

It’s hardly distinguishable from yesterday. Every day begins the same for me now.
There is little variation between my days.

I have a lot to learn about retirement. It has been six months. I have not completed the mandatory orientation so I am still experiencing a learning curve, gradual rather than steep but noticeable. I am not out of breath but out of energy.

In the past I was known for my energy and productivity and I generated energy based on the volume and weight of the demands upon my life and my time. I am wired that way. With few demands upon me the energy has also dissipated. And it was my choice. The wiring was getting a bit singed.

But wow! Here I am at Saturday once again and it hardly matters, because tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. Oh we’ll interpose some identifiables such as a Superbowl game, and a church service on Sunday whereas Friday was one of the days that my wife babysits two grandchildren each week. But all the days are lookalike days pretty much.

Here is the thing with me. I am not in touch with my feelings. Christine has told me this before but last night we were watching Richard Geer in ‘Shall We Dance,” and in several scenes Richard is sitting at his desk in his city office. I realized something last night that I have not previously admitted or even realized. I am experiencing career postpartum blues. I miss going to the office. I miss my office. I miss a place with consequential activity and the noise of other active adults and their conversation. I miss the large desk and the shelves of books and the large wall of windows and an executive assistant. I miss the way my mornings began. The predawn meditative start with cuppa joe and hurried shower and drive to the office with the north shore mountains ahead of me until I turned onto the campus environment of a stimulating academic world.

Oh, have I mentioned before that Christine has also been experiencing the effect of my life change because it has impacted her personally too. She came to enjoy waking to kiss me goodbye and to know I would be gone until supper hour. She enjoyed the luxury of a large home space not for the cleaning it required but the privacy it afforded. No interruptions except those she welcomed or initiated.

This is definitely a time of modification and adjustment and emotion factors prominently into the changes. Yet it is still good. It is still right – this time and place I am in. I am happy. We are happy. We are content. Over the next year a purposeful use of our abilities and gifts will become clear. A lifetime of accumulated ‘stuff’ will be reduced to what a smaller living space can contain. We will travel and taste and talk outside of Canada fulfilling dreams for which a desk and four walls are unnecessary. We just need one another, our health and a map and a good pair of dancing shoes.