Semi-retirement- Blessing or curse?
Back on January 31st I wrote a blog about starting my journey into semi-retirement. I was all excited, like a kid starting school in September or an adult starting a new career. The idea of so much free time and all the activities I could do with my time was exhilarating! The weekend prior to my start of semi-retirement was giddy and filled with setting intentions. I was looking at the movie of my life and setting up for yoga training, artistic endeavors, skiing, hiking…..
Typically my weekends are chock full of visits with friends, some sort of physical activity, dinners out,… So I saw the semi-retirement as a giant set of wonderful weekends that would be bursting with fun and games.
So on February 6th I started my retirement portion of life- off on Mondays and Fridays. I would have longer weekends than workweeks. After a yoga retreat that kept me away all weekend before my first day off I was able to sleep in and do a nice winter hike for that first off day. I felt pretty good about my decision to dial down. Then my first 4-day weekend came along. I made plans for the night before the Friday my weekend started and they…got cancelled. The morning of my first Friday off my massage therapist texted me and…cancelled. Now I had a day completely free until 3:30 when I went off to do volunteer work. Even my evening was free. What did I do? Nothing. I lied in bed, read a bit, I did nothing substantial. Then came my Saturday. A morning visit to the gym, lunch with friends, and clean the house. Then came my Sunday which was full from morning to night- my usual type of weekend. Then came Monday. I stayed in bed until….2:30.
When I finally got up on Monday I felt so…bad. Here I was the go getter, the doer, the girl with all the fantastic plans. As far as I was concerned I used those two extra days to do…nothing. I was so angry with myself. I beat myself up- well not physically. I reached for my favorite form of self-nurture that becomes my favorite form of self-deprecation- chocolate covered Joe Joes. If you don’t have a Trader Joes in your town or you’re just not familiar with this magical confection it’s a dark chocolate covered Oreo like cookie with candy cane bits tucked inside the white filling and sprinkled on top of the dark chocolate. It’s healthy hell. After sleeping in and then consuming those cookies I felt completely down, victim-y, at the end of my rope. I was ready to go back screaming into the office to let them know that no, I wasn’t ready to semi-retire I had no plans for my life and I wasn’t going anywhere. Please, give me my 5 days back!
Luckily, that visit with my leadership never came. What did come (with the help of some friends) was awareness. I’ve been so busy for the past 30 some odd years of my career (and perhaps before that) just DOING that I haven’t given myself enough time for just BEING. What is so wrong with sitting around alone with my thoughts? NOTHING. That’s the key. I have spent so much time thinking that my time is only valuable if I’m doing something. It’s time to change that message with myself. If I have to I can schedule my nothing time (though it looks like I’m pretty good at getting it without actually putting it on my calendar). There is one thing I do know about myself. When I don’t spend some of my time each day interacting with other people then I feel pretty low. I’m an extrovert and I need to feed that extrovert energy. But I don’t have to do it every second! It’s time to introduce myself…to myself. Thank you self, for giving me permission to be still.