It’s Been a Year

It’s been about a year since retirement (2/7/2020) and it’s been a helluva year. Not what I expected or planned by a longshot. I’m thankful for my timing though, as we got our annual trip to the Keys in and settled back home safely just before Covid took over our lives. Best part is not being on Zoom calls all day; that would drive me crazy quickly.

Time has flown by as days rolled into weeks. With the lockdowns, closures, and restrictions on going anywhere, the days still blend together. My workout schedule helps me tell days apart and keeping up with my workouts has helped me to deal with not being able to just jump in the car and go somewhere for lunch, or to meet a friend for drinks, or to just walk to a local watering hole and sit at the bar. Heck, I figured I’d have my own bar stool at our local brewery by now. Writing posts for this blog and continuing to learn about websites and SEO has helped me to stay positive and kept my brain active. It’s also been an outlet for me to express my thoughts and feelings about retirement and whatever else comes to mind (hey, it’s my blog).

I understand the need to be careful but that doesn’t make the isolation any easier to take. With my wife working and her business booming, I’m on my own most days. Now that winter has set in, I spend a lot of time emailing, reading articles on various websites to get a balanced view of issues, and watching old movies from TCM that I’ve DVR’d (when did that become a verb?). Once the weather starts to warm again, outdoor activities will kick back in and that will help my psyche – and my waistline. Keeping in touch with friends and family is more important now than ever before, and thankfully we have many ways to do that these days, but email, texting, phone calls and Zoom don’t come close to being together in person.

One big challenge has been avoiding drinking and smoking cigars to pass the time. It’s easy to get lulled into nasty habits out of boredom or loneliness, and retiring into the year we just had was certainly fodder for both. I often think of what a social worker asked me several years ago when my mom was in the hospital. Mom was hard of hearing and her mind was not as sharp as it once was, and after a session with her, the social worker turned to me and asked “do you drink?”. Her tone was not accusatory but rather almost permissive, as if had I said yes she would have replied “I completely understand and it’s justified”. My actual reply was that I worked very hard not to. That was a stressful period of dealing with my parents and stress is another driver of bad habits – and there’s no shortage of stress out there right now. For me, having this blog, keeping up a workout schedule, reading, and keeping my brain and body occupied has kept me from heading down a slippery slope. That being said, cocktail hour does start early once in a while.

Physically, it’s been a good year, but mentally there have been a few down times. The most recent one was the inspiration of this post. I guess it was a post-holiday let down after actually visiting with some family and friends over the holidays, triggered by taking our Christmas tree down. It was short lived, but nonetheless a bit scary, and it took some effort to shake myself out of it.

With all the ups and downs over the past year, I’m still thankful for the timing of my retirement. It got me out of a not-so-good situation at a pretty good time, allowed for a fantastic extended vacation to celebrate, and set me free to explore other opportunities and to get “me” back. After taking a few months to exhale, I started this blog as a way to learn about creating a website and an outlet for writing. Volunteer opportunities went on hold with the lockdown, but at the end of the summer I connected with a friend at a local charity just as she was looking for someone to provide project and process guidance and advice to her team on a web-based platform project. Timing is everything.

Yes, it’s been a helluva year, but by focusing on the positives and looking for ways to continue to learn and grow, it’s been a good year. You can ‘t choose what happens to you but you can choose how you react. Choose to find the positive and let it propel you forward.