EXPECTATIONS

I expected my Dad not to die in the summer since he was attached to his garden and loved the long days. He died Feb 13 in the middle of a typical Buffalo winter and a foot of snow. He just walked to the downstairs bedroom, got into a rented hospital bed and just stopped. I don’t think it was a conscious choice it just happened since it was “his time”.
When I was working, there were expectations, commitments, action plans, colleagues affected and involved and a pay check. When you retire, re-tire, which the thesaurus says is either give up work or go to bed, all of the outside controls are gone and you are left to your own devise. Like Dad, I am not sure it was my choice but where I was working was not giving me a warm fuzzy feeling and after 47 years, it was “my time” to stop working.
Recently, I Facebook surfed and found some folks that are counting the hours until they join the “retired”. I wanted to put out a major thesis on the art, pitfalls, and tasks of retiring with the least being to get on a schedule, create personal expectations and commitments, develop action plans for multiple projects and balance your life – physical, spiritual, and practical all while learning to not give in to ego. It is the ego, the ring master, that now has no external pressure i.e. the boss might be watching, to keep you from saying I am “tired” and it is ok to play computer cards, watching CNN or thumbing through 10 yrs work of magazines and then saying tomorrow is another day. I did that for a very short time and thought eventually, I would not remember what I read or done and the result was a pile of calendar days on the floor taking up space.
When I recognized that sliding down an incline toward the discard pile was not an option, I got projects – wouldn’t it be fun to make a big picnic for my friends for the Eastman Garden or cookies for a mid-winter treat. It is fun seeing that others have just as much trouble just taking something because it was given. Most have to give back even though the intent was for me to give back.
I found groups, - the Camera Club, the Women’s Outdoor Group, the Bertrand Russell Society, Genesee Hiking Club etc. and I committed to major house projects like the Book, Clothes, Stuff project that requires everything to march past my “does this make me Smile meter” and then either get Stowed, Tossed, or Cycled out of the house toward someone else's what do you do with this box. All of this in-between, training for the next walking marathon, working out, cooking healthy meals, etc. My expectations were that I would have lots of personal leisure time or I would be depressed not having a job to go to.
The reality is that I might have to go back to work so I can have more time and only have to march to someone else’s expectations and not my to do list.