I sleep until I wake up. The discipline to rise in the dark to get ready to make the 55-minute drive to arrive at work at 7am is finished. In those times I got up a little before 5am to leave a little after 6am. Ever a person with words swirling in my head, a little rhyme started my day:
Sleep forsaken
Shower taken
My teeth are brushed
But I’m not rushed
I’ve made my bed
The fish are fed
Stretches done
My day’s begun
Then the pandemic hit and I ended up working from home for 16 months before I retired. Notwithstanding, I got up no later than 6am to be at my computer by 7am. Now I sleep until I wake up. The pressure to rise early is gone. However, old patterns often morph into pleasant habits. I wake up on my own, refreshed, unhurried, around 6:30 to 7:00 every day, including weekends.
I like early morning hours when it’s quiet, mellow, anticipatory. Though I’ve never developed a habit of meditating, I enjoy a kind of tranquil suspension between thought and activity. It’s a time when I own my life, my world, my future. In the privacy of just being I move toward the day’s agenda –now an agenda of my own choosing.
There’s still discipline in my life because I want there to be. I thrive within a certain amount of order and regularity. Conversely, I choose both symmetry and variation, a dance between planned and unstructured activities –or no activities at all. Sometimes I simply flop onto my couch for an untimed nap.
Though I struggle a bit with my left hip and knee, I do not feel trapped by old age. Quite the opposite; I feel released, emancipated from a work regime that boxed me in. Though rewarding in its successes and achievements, my job and the travel time it took to get there and back, left very few hours for all the other activities in my life. Being retired, so far, suits me wonderfully. My newly found independence is satisfying; my journey fresh and inviting.
Work world forsaken
Retirement taken
The hours mine
To take the time
To plan and choose
To keep or lose –
A life unlocked
Outlook unblocked.
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