Normality? What is that??

Normality? What is that? Well, I think it could be what I'm starting to feel in my new life as a retired person: there's starting to be rhythm to it all.

At last after almost 10 weeks of days filled with tears, anger, resentment, disbelief and a huge feeling of loss, I woke up this Monday and realised that this feeling, whatever it was in my stomach (no not hunger - never!) had actually disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place. A bit of an awakening in many ways.

I have no idea why or what it is that's actually changed, but changed it has. I'm waking with a positivity that had deserted me, and it's great to welcome it back.

I realise that actually retirement is not that bad, and I can at last see some opportunities in this new way of living.

The freedom to start to plan the travels we talked about for example, to start looking at my garden with eyes that see it as a joy rather than a chore to fit in with work. An opportunity to learn to play the keyboard properly that's sat looking at me mournfully from its corner in the spare room. Finally, a little bit of gentle ribbing from my son about the content of my last blog also gave me food for thought.

Retirement is starting to feel a bit cliched to be truthful, it gets to about 4pm and I wonder where the day has gone? Everyone said, 'you'll wonder how you found time to work'! Well we're not there yet by any means, but the days do seem to fly by. I honestly do have to check my watch occasionally to check what day it is!! Honestly!

I guess not getting up till about 9.30/10 is part of that, but once the lighter mornings start in the Spring I'm expecting that to change, right now, it's rather nice to have a relaxed morning cuppa together, rather than rushing up and getting off to work.

I still can't get to sleep much before midnight - years of late nights working have left their mark, so we're learning to enjoy what Netflix has to offer......... 😄 or else at last, I've given myself 'permission' to make a start on the stack of unread books that have always been for 'when I've time to read' them.

I realise that essentially, retirement (however much I longed for it) has been essentially like a bereavement of sorts. Not only from the sheer physical activity of work, but all the friendships and relationships within the workplace, the reality of patterns of behaviour learnt over years of work were suddenly swept away. I thought I was prepared, but I now see I absolutely wasn't.

More (honest) ramblings soon,

Liz x

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