Thursday,
January 2, 2020
This would be the first day of the ‘semi’ in my
semi-retirement. I went to bed
early because I was only getting worse and continued to cough throughout the
night. From 3:30 a.m. on, I didn’t
sleep hardly at all and finally dragged myself from bed at 5:20 and got ready
to go.
I’d made a large batch of salad with chicken breast
meat cubed in for my lunches and put a couple of handfuls in a Tupperware
container. I grabbed an apple and
a banana for the ride to work and jumped in the car. Justin, the guy who was going to be working the three days
I’d be retired, was waiting in the parking lot when I arrived. We went over opening up the building
and how I’d pass along tasks that needed to be completed along with how we’d
communicate such things for about an hour before I got into the day.
I’d been off for most of the past two weeks and
there was plenty to do, but I found there was a certain lightness to how I was feeling
that I couldn’t at first identify.
As the day progressed and I completed the ‘task’ log I’d created for us,
it dawned on me that I was no longer in it alone. I have been a one-man show for the last six years, owning
all of the improvements, repairs, contractor contacts, preventive maintenance,
and volunteer groups, to name some of my responsibilities. I would often go home wondering how I’d
complete the next days’ tasks, not always certain if I could do it at all. I’d taken the job knowing what I didn’t
know but thinking I could learn it along the way. For the most part, I’d done that, but there was, and is, stress
is such a situation.
And yet…I wasn’t feeling it anymore…and it
felt…wonderful!
Lisa, our volunteer coordinator, and someone I
thoroughly enjoy working with, stopped me to ask a question. “Since you’re off three days a week
now…”
“Hold it right there,” I said, “you don’t know how
many times I’ve heard that lately and it’s usually followed up with a job I can
do.”
“…maybe you’d like to do some side work over at my
farm?”
Aviva, another co-worker, was in the room and
listening closely. “My friend Amy
who lives around the corner and has opened an new stable really needs a
‘John’. I should take you over
there to meet her, if you’d like to do some extra work,” she concluded.
Actually, I do like working side jobs. I can do them at my pace and price and
take what I want, rejecting stuff I dislike. In fact, I rode over to Amy’s place to work on a wheelbarrow
before heading to Mimi’s to fix her garage door before heading home.
I doubt I will lack for things to do and I’m
thinking about them while I’m writing this. I went to the movies last night to see ‘Ford verses
Ferrari’, which was amazing, but skipped any outdoor activity. Tomorrow is tomorrow and I will exercise
on my first true retirement day…a day I would have been working otherwise.
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