Retirement Blues…….

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person standing near lake
Photo by Lukas Rychvalsky on Pexels.com

I had high hopes for my retirement. I thought that it would give me the peace and solitude that I had craved ever since my first day as someone’s employee. It would give me the permission to escape to my beloved house and never have to speak to people I didn’t like ever again. I thought that retirement would give me sweet release from responsibility and the horrible loose ends that never seemed to ever get neatly tied up. The inability to ever really solve a problem once and for all was the worst part of my life as a school principal. Everytime I thought I had eliminated a few problems there were always a few threads that had escaped the bow and I would have to revisit the same issue over and over again. To add insult to injury ,there were also the fifty other issues that had developed while I was trying to solve the old ones. Worrying about all the loose ends turned me into an insomniac. I hated being diplomatic all the time to people who didn’t deserve diplomacy. There were so many times that I wondered if they could see the blood leaking out of the corners of my mouth as I bit a hole through my tongue trying to keep the terrible obscenities I wanted to hurl at them inside. They would always compliment me on my calmness and patience never knowing what it cost me. On those days when I had to suppress my real feelings of hurt and rage I would be jolted out of a fitful sleep by my racing heart and the crushing fear that I was dying. All those repressed feelings had to come out somewhere so they turned inward and attacked me. I was fighting with myself and I was losing. My blood pressure was on a roller coaster ride that was taking my poor body somewhere it didn’t want to go. SO I RETIRED AND………..

For the first month it was everything I could have wanted. I slept like I was in a coma. When I finally woke up it was only to go to the bathroom and get something to eat. It was like the best part of sick leave …padding around in your pajamas with your blankie wrapped around you and a bowl of Mom’s chicken soup on a tray in fornt of the TV. I didn’t care what anybody was doing. I didn’t care what day or time it was. I didn’t have to answer any emails or phone calls. I don’t even think I spoke to my family (whom I adore!) very much that first month. I read books and watched movies. NETFLIX ROCKS!!!!! It was heaven. The second month my Husband and I went to our favorite summer place- MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. I sat on the hotel balcony and baked in the sun ,listening to the sound of the ocean for SEVEN DAYS!  We swam in the ocean, floated in the pool, ate everything that we shouldn’t have, and drank ourselves into oblivion. HEAVEN!!

When we came back we began doing some home renovations because that’s what people do when they retire or so I heard. Retirement gave me the time to work on the things I had been neglecting at home. I jumped into the home renovation projects and discovered that this was not a fun undertaking. In many ways it sucked terribly but I did get a new garage and bathroom out of it so I will reserve that horror show for another post. I continued to rest, read, sleep ,eat, and go on trips with the Husband. The school year started again and I relished not being there and having no responsibilities. But I was also sad about not being there and not having responsibilities. I had been an Educator for 33 years and that part of my life was over. I felt USELESS AND INVISIBLE. I was shocked by this revelation. I thought that I had just retired ,but I had really stopped being the PUBLIC RANDY. SHE was a teacher, an administrator, an instructional leader, a contributing member of society, SOMEBODY! When I retired I went back to being PRIVATE RANDY -WIFE AND MOTHER- but in the time that I had been PUBLIC RANDY my children had become adults and there were two whole careers between my Husband and I.  I had no idea who I was anymore and I was terrified.

My Husband told me that it would get better that I would find something to do with myself. He suggested that I just do what I felt like doing. I reached out to some of my retired colleagues to find out if they had felt this way and what they were doing with the rest of their lives. They told me that they LOVED retirement. They said that it would take a little while but I would love it too. They told me that I should take some trips, take some classes in topics or hobbies I was interested in, volunteer in the community, or go back to work part time. These were all wonderful suggestions so I did what they said. I took a few art classes. I opened a family membership at the YMCA and took Zumba classes. I also went swimming there.I thought that these activities would eventually help me find myself again. But as I participated in these things I FELT NOTHING. I felt like I was just going through the motions like an obedient child. There was no satisfaction. I felt like I was just wasting time, taking up space, doing nothing. I felt GUILTY. Isn’t that crazy? I FELT GUILTY FOR RETIRING. I FELT GUILTY BECAUSE I WAS DOING NOTHING. I FELT GUILTY BECAUSE I WAS NOT SAVING THE WORLD.

For the first time in my life I was not responsible for anyone but me and I was lost. It had been so long since I had only myself to consider that I had completely forgotten who I was when it was JUST ME. I was going to have to find myself again… at the ripe old age of 60 years old …….RIDICULOUS!!!!!

 

 

Sacred places

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This is a picture of my favorite place in the whole world, The Summit on Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks. Driving up to the top of the mountain is like entering another world. White clouds float around you , the smell of the trees, the sweet fresh air, the other mountain peaks in the distance, so beautiful. At the summit, the mountain is rocky, jagged , smooth and solid, with lichen and small flowers nestled in the crevasses. You can walk around the outside of the Weather Station to the Observation Deck and out onto the rocks themselves where you can stand as close to the edge as you dare and see….forever. When we go there, I lean on the rock wall , close my eyes and talk to God. I feel His Presence in this place. When I open my eyes I am empty of all the garbage I brought with me. I can breathe again. I lift my face to the sun and inhale the sweet air and I am good for another year. If you need to get some AIR…….. visit my mountain ….we can share…..breathe

No Adjustments needed!

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When I was a little girl I always had to be mindful of what I said, what I did, even what my facial expressions were because any and all transgressions would be met with a swift slap across the face or worse. My Mother was a  very volatile, hyper critical West Indian woman who seemed to be always angry about something. There were times when she was warm and fun and engaging ,but those times were few and far between. They could also descend very quickly into me being in trouble and getting a beating or a slap. So I very rarely said what I really meant or let any emotions show on my face. I could be seething inside or want to go into my room and hide but outwardly I was the picture of obedience. This may sound pretty horrible and in many ways it was but my childhood also had my wonderful Grandmother and my sister and a host of Aunts, Uncles, and cousins to balance out the crazy. I learned to ADJUST myself to maintain the balance in my house to keep myself out of trouble. I learned not to react, not to say what I really felt, not to show interest in things that were not important to my Mother, to not want things I really should have wanted, to always consider the emotional state of others before my own and adjust accordingly to keep the peace. 

Eventually I discovered that this training would be very useful when I matured and entered the workplace. I am incredibly good at determining a person’s emotional state and intentions which has kept me out of some ridiculous situations and helped me become very successful in my career. But as I have gotten older it is becoming harder and harder to continue to adjust for others. I don’t want to worry about how anyone will feel if I say or do something they may not like. I just want to say it and the hell with the consequences. This of course probably won’t go over very well but what can I do. During a discussion with my daughter about a conversation I wanted to have with her Father,She told me that I might want to begin by speaking to him as if I really wanted to understand his perspective as opposed to talking to him as if I already knew his perspective and had decided it was stupid! As you can guess I was insulted! But my Daughter and I can really speak honestly to each other (she has never had to adjust – she is truly her own person) so I told her that I was insulted. But I also told her that she was right about my intentions. I had to check myself and admit that I was not being honest with my feelings but I resented having to adjust myself to make the conversation more palatable for him. I have been doing this my whole life and I just want to be me- or whoever I am at that moment. I wondered if adjusting yourself to keep the BALANCE is what we all do so that we can fit in and get along. Do we pick and choose the times when we can be fully ourselves or are we never fully ourselves? I think sometimes that maybe my Mother had to adjust herself to keep the balance when she was a child and all her anger was about that. She never adjusted to keep the BALANCE as an adult. She told it like it was at all times -usually loudly with her favorite curse word lovingly sprinkled in for emphasis. I wonder who I will be when I grow up.

Hello world!

seabrooklr94 Comments

Inside of my head are all of the things I have wanted to say out loud, but didn’t . Years and years of words that I was too shy or too afraid or too responsible to say. Words that I was afraid would bounce back in my face and kill me or fly out of my mouth and kill someone or something that I didn’t know was important at the time. I am hoping that I have lived long enough and done enough that I don’t have to fear those things anymore. I just want to be Randy here and set those words in my head free. Im hoping that they have arranged themselves into nice, neat little sentences that have remembered to use their inside voices. But I’m afraid that they may be raging behind those masks of civility. So I apologize in advance for any damage they may cause on their way out.