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Did I say retired?

 Retirement – oh what a lovely word. My dictionary says it means ‘to give up work permanently’.

It feels as if I barely started work as a school leaver before I was married, had children, the family had fled the nest and I was looking at ‘giving up work permanently’. I had such plans for retirement. They did not include housework, ironing or grocery shopping but centred more on sleeping in, reading books, watching Netflix and of course, going out with the mates for coffee.

So I retired from a full-time job and carried on doing two days a week in another position for the same organisation. I did not ‘give up work permanently’ on the other three days a week, I just swapped one job for another. Now I did all that mundane stuff around the house that I used to pay someone else to do! Add to that the odd health appointment, and taking my dear old mum grocery shopping and to her appointments – I was busier than ever.

People kept asking me, “how is retirement?” They looked at me either patronisingly or uncomprehendingly when I said how busy I was. They never knew how close they were to being retired themselves – by me.

Four months down the track I retired from my part-time work too. The good news was that I had a second fare-well! That’s got to be worth something. Now I could find the time to do those things I really wanted to do. But somehow the mundane seemed to expand to fill those extra two days. I was so busy I wondered how I ever found time to work even while struggling with a lack of purpose described in a prior post.

There is much information about the importance of exercise as you age. So walking also seemed like a good idea, so every day I would set out for a short walk often ending up at a café. Might as well get exercise, Vitamin D and a coffee all in one hit.

Of course, as well as the exercise I believe I am supposed to eat healthily (oops) and keep my brain active. I have to add at this point that cross-word puzzles and I do not get on at all well. But I don’t think the old brain is going to give up anytime soon, I have too much going on.

So if you think you are going to have a lazy retirement, think again friends.

 

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