“R” Is for Rest–Isn’t It?

What does retirement mean to you? Travel? Sleeping late? Lazing about in a hammock?

Would that it were so.

Much of the media that comes at newly retired people like me is about launching a second or third or fourth career, pursuing long-delayed dreams of entrepreneurship, or chasing previously unattained fitness goals. I’m supposed to become the subject of an article with a headline like “85 year-old completes marathon,” or “74 year-old climbs Mount Everest,” or “66 year-old actress wins Oscar in first feature film role,” etc. (not that I don’t dream about being the subject of that third one).

But so far, a whopping two months in to retirement, I’m making lists and schedules of tasks intended to transmute greater independent living skills, one day and one skill at a time, to Angelic Daughter. As for me? Sunday, laundry, ironing, mending. Monday, vacuuming. Tuesday, cleaning upstairs bathroom. Wednesday, laundry again. Thursday, downstairs bathroom. Friday, mowing and weeding (weather permitting). Saturday, kitchen.

These schedules have me cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, and weeding the garden, while simultaneously plotting rounds of Swedish death cleaning, figuring out how to divest myself of most of the useless crap that is clogging my closets and my garage.

And yet. Somewhere in there, I know, it’s important to stop, and just be.

Especially on a glorious day like today: clear, blue, and breezy, with temperatures hovering in the mid-70s (Fahrenheit). It’s like a reward for coming through two hot humid days in the low 90s with only the bedrooms air conditioned, and for time in the basement under a tornado warning two nights ago (with no branches down and no roof shingles gone, best I can tell, thank God).

Before the storms hit, I took Angelic Daughter to the park district pool. Her Dad was very much a summer guy, a pool guy, and would take her nearly every nice day during the season, splashing and twirling her in the water, and shooting baskets at the poolside hoop, the both of them laughing and she shrieking and squealing with delight.

I can’t possibly match the fun he was. But I can make the effort to actually jump in the pool instead of lounging on the pool deck in a chaise under a giant shade umbrella, watching. I don’t like the smell of chlorine, and I’m enough of a germ freak to be a little grossed out at bathing in a huge tubful of other people, many of them little kids. Eeewww.

But this time, watching her try to have fun by herself in the pool just got to me. “Hell with it, I’m going in.” And I got her to laugh and shriek and swim back and forth across the pool with me a few times.

I’ve done some other truly radical things lately, in the spirit of enjoying the here and now.

I ate a banana. A banana! Full of sugar! Yes, but also potassium. I made smoothies with blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and yes, bananas!

I shared ice cream sandwiches with Angelic Daughter, a treat I ordinarily wouldn’t admit to the house, much less partake of. But c’mon, everyone deserves an ice cream sandwich on a hot, humid summer day, right?

I’m paying more attention to enjoying mundane moments that shouldn’t go by unnoticed and without joy. Replenishing the water in the birdbath and watching the robins come and immediately splash almost all of it out again.

Forgiving the rabbits (or deer? I saw two for the first time in 25 years in this neighborhood while coming home from a MeetUp the other night) that have been chewing off the tops of my coneflowers.

The feeling of accomplishment, and the substantial sweat, after a 30 minute dumbbell workout. Even appreciating the soreness the next day. I’m sore! I must have done something good!

There are more fireflies this year than last. They make me happy. In the evening I’ll stay outside on the deck slapping mosquitos off me until I’ve seen my share of fireflies glowing around the yard.

There are so many little things that make me feel grateful to be alive, reasonably healthy, and so far, mostly compos mentis.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a bit of a Type A busy-bee. I don’t sit down for long. There’s always something else that needs doing.

But now that my days of billing hours or exchanging emails at 3 in the morning (“what are you doing up?” “I could ask you the same”) or just punching a clock are over, I’m reminding myself to take some time to just be.

Hoping there’s an Adirondack chair waiting for you in a cool green yard or on a deck by a pristine lake or a on a breezy ocean beach, I remain,

Your stop-and-smell-the-roses, yes-chores-are-important-but-look-at-this-DAY!, going-to-da-ballgame-in-a-few-days-wit-my-brudder-and-Angelic-Daughter-too,

Ridiculouswoman