Retirement

My husband and I have been retired for one year. This year has passed more quickly than any other year in my life. It is true, we have done a lot this past year. We downsized, prepared our house to sell, sold our house, found a place to live, sold our boat, bought another boat, moved, helped our daughter move, delivered our boat from New York to Maryland and began cruising on our boat. It is a lot, but I don't believe all of that activity is the only reason this year passed quickly.

When I was working there were days that seemed to pass SO slowly. I enjoyed aspects of my job (the clients and coworkers) but there were other aspects that made the work very stressful and took all of the joy out of work. Now that I am retired my days seem more like my own. I can choose how I spend my time. So how do I spend my time? I sleep in most days to somewhere between 7 and 8 am. I go to the gym and take 5 exercises classes a week when I am in town. I read all of the newspaper most days. I keep caught up on my emails. I follow a very active FaceBook group called Women Who Sail. I follow several sailing blogs. I sew. I meet other women for a Girls' Night Out once a week. I read books. And, of course, I sail. I generally feel much calmer and more content without the stress of my former job. At times when I do feel a little stressed about something I recall how frequently I felt like that when working and how rarely I feel like that now. I believe that because my days are so much more enjoyable the time seems to pass more quickly.

Before we retired my brother-in-law told my husband that we would be busier than we imagined in retirement. We were skeptical about that but we found that it is so true. My life feels just busy enough.

My husband and I spend almost all of our time together now. Fortunately, we have always enjoyed each other's company and we still do. We run most of our errands together so it has become a challenge to surreptitiously buy cards for each other (for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.). We agreed we wouldn't buy them anymore. There is more quiet time when we are together, but that is okay.

It is possible that I may eventually miss some of the things I got from working. It hasn't happened, yet, though!

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