Last week I came to a brilliant post-retirement breakthrough, "I'm not late anymore" I told John. He quickly retorted, "That's because you have no place to go". That's kind of sad, but the freeing feeling and lack of anxiety is exhilarating. Like a deep yoga breath, followed by as many more as you want to inhale.
The last time I experienced the calmness of unstructured time was after our youngest son, Jack was born in Tallahassee. I was a "stay at home" mom. It didn't last long, and as soon as our family moved back to Miami I went into full speed ahead "working mom" mode. I recall one hectic afternoon when Jack was about 5 years old and he asked me from his carseat in the back of my minivan, "Mom, what does it mean when you are late all the time?". Almost twenty years later, I vividly remember how I advised him, "Then, you get the reputation for always being late and nobody can rely on you". Jack's innocent response made me swallow hard, "So, how does that feel?".
My entire life I have always been late, or at least as far back as high school tardy slips can document. Overextended, over scheduled, over committed trying to do it all and dropping balls left and right. After it all came to a stop, it took me a month to realize that I hadn't missed one appointment or been late to anything. I have decided that "having no place to go" is one of the best things about retirement.
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