A Whole New Life

When I wrote my first post last Summer, I never dreamed that six months later, Ed and I would begin a "whole new life"--taking off this week by ourselves in just what we can carry in our car for six to nine months on an adventure living in Los Angeles, California. And when it is through, Ed will have a whole new lease on life--a new lung, hopefully ten more years of good quality life, and we'll be able to travel again, even go to the cabin at Island Park and fish, both which we had ruled out.

So this week begins my whole new life in more ways than one! Am I nervous and frightened? Of course. Am I excited? More hopeful than excited. My thoughts are echoed by a dream Ed had that woke him up at 1:10 a.m. this morning. He said it was a nightmare. He dreamed we were in Europe or the Middle East and finding all these wonderful treasures. However, we couldn't get them in the car--they kept falling out. He became more and more frustrated because when they fell out they would be lost and couldn't be retrieved.

My Next Life . . . Retirement

For years I’ve talked about all the things I’d do in “my next life” . . . when I retired. Well, finally the day has come, and I wonder if I’ll do all the things I’ve dreamed, threatened, planned about doing.
1. I’ll sleep in until noon. That’s not something I have done in the month I’ve been retired, nor do I expect to do that. Most days I wake up at the same time as usual—between 5:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. Only on Saturday morning do I sleep in until 8:00 a.m.
2. We will travel and go all the places we’ve wanted to go and not had the time. Ha! Ha! Ha! Although we do have two “weekend” trips planned, to Ed’s 50th year class reunion in Burley Idaho and to his flight school reunion in Branson, Missouri, travel seems as distant as when we worked. Maybe after things slow down we’ll go on trips more often but now we are too busy with ordinary family and home things, and it seems so much more expensive to travel than when we worked.
3. I will get to all those home projects I’ve put off all these years. That is the biggest joke of all! I have tried to get a little work done on them every day (okay every week), but the pile keeps growing instead of going down. Maybe if I had 48 hours a day, didn’t need sleep and had the energy of a two-year-old, I could get the projects caught up, but I doubt it. I’ll keep working on the projects, but I think it is impossible to get caught up, even in “my next life,” which now will be the afterlife. Can spirits come back and organize their sewing room? Sort their photo albums? Clean up the basement? I sure hope so, or my kids will be angry that I never got these things done and left it for them!
4. I will exercise every morning at 7:00 a.m. How I could do this and still sleep in until noon, I’ll never know, but somehow I expected to get up and go exercise with the neighbor ladies who meet each morning at 7:00 a.m. for aerobics and then yoga. Although I am awake and busy, I can think of every excuse in the world NOT to join them. Even if I planned my own exercise routine, or walked, or did any type of exercise it would be good, but I still procrastinate. I didn’t really gain weight until after I was 50 years old, and I remember rationalizing that if I was skinny for the first 50 years of my life, I’d be resurrected skinny even if I was overweight the last part since it wouldn’t be 50 years (I don’t intend to live to be 100 years).
5. I will work in the garden for an hour in the early morning. I will walk in the garden in the early morning and look at all the work that needs to be done, maybe. But weed? In my dreams!
6. I will spend more quality time with my grandchildren doing fun things. Okay, that was a good idea, but it just hasn’t worked out too well. I’m still working on it. Give me time.

I give up! I don’t want to keep listing all the things I was going to do, in my retirement. I think I’ll go take a nap! That’s something I do now I’m retired that I said I would do!