New Habits

Surprise!  I am not bored.  Life is settling into a comfortable pattern now that the blush of the first busy "retirement" weeks are past.  I don't miss daily office life, its metro commute, reading the Times on my iPhone while I wait on the platform for the always delayed blue line, spending time with colleagues who do fine with me gone, or eating at my desk, stopping mid-task to walk down the street to "Jack's Fresh" for a styrofoam box lunch of Asian hot dishes or cold salads.  I am delivered from the wrath of the buffet gods!

Life now has a slower pace that is very tolerable for impatient people like myself.  I can read in bed until 2 AM, knowing there is ample time for sleeping past 7:30 in the morning.  I can laze, stretching while I listen to NPR, deciding if today is an exercise day and then reading the Times in paper form with its ever messy ink that leaves stains on my finger tips. 

Having time to think is gift.  I didn't realize how little I was actually thinking beyond the mundane these last ten years.  Thinking requires exploration, like this morning when I read two articles from The Sunday Time's magazine, one about a new talking Barbie doll under development, the social implications of this almost robot that holds over 8,000 discussions and responses for conversing with 4-8 year old girls blows my mind given that my dolls only said "mama" if anything.  No more fantasy conversations.  But, I digress.  The second article was a profile of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who at 68 still stands 6'10", a man who has spent his life as a serious intellectual and writer caught in an extremely talented basketball playing body.  His career was dictated by his race -- to succeed he had to be an athlete first.  I now understand why he doesn't often shake hands and or smile.

There is time to take care of myself.  I'm becoming a strong old lady. I'm at out apartment gym three times a week, running 3 miles and then working with weights for upper body building and bending through a sequence of sit-ups and their variations for core strength.  No longer do I put pressure on myself to drag my mind and body to a trainer no matter how I feel at the end of the day.  I paid to ensure that I showed up.  As a mid-westerner, the guilt of wasting money was a powerful motivation tool.  Having time eliminated the guilt and the trainer.

There is time to learn instead of regurgitating what I already know as I did at the office. Discovering online streaming "Great Courses" set me on a knowledge path of my own making.  For so many years, learning was relegated to night classes, even for my doctorate classes starting at 5 PM, lasting until 11PM, making driving back to DC from Baltimore hazardous to both my health and other drivers on the road. I know its what I had to do and thousands of other adults (I am still an adult, if not a young one) do it too, but it is a reward both physically and intellectually to sit down while the sun still shines to take a class on my own terms.

There is also time to resurrect old skills, to use my hands again at sewing which I learned as a teenager from many, many hours of teaching by my mother.  Our  sail boat requires the addition of new canvas items -- a stack pack to catch the mainsail and release us from the arduous task of sail furling when we bring it down at the end of the day, an awning to shade the foredeck from the simmering summer sun, new covers for the monster sized fenders protecting the boat from chaffing against the dock's pilings, lee cloths for sleeping comfortably underway, and covers for the side port-lights (aka windows) to shade the interior from weather and prying eyes.  I will buy kits online for it all (sailrite.com) and I've got a Tech Shop (techshop.com) right at the foot of our apartment building. It has large spaces, big tables and industrial strength sewing machines.  The work will keep me busy all winter. But most importantly, my mother would be proud, even if I won't have to sew flat-fell seams or tailor a lapel.