When do normal people retire? Typically after their kids leave the nest and they have hit a certain age. For me retirement came at the ripe old age of 30! Yes 30! After being a full time mom for several years and spending every breathing moment with my toddlers, they suddenly left me for prospective elementary schools. I went from needy toddlers hanging from my arms to totally jobless and unattached (to children). For six hours every day I wandered like a ghost from room to room in my empty house.
I spent the mornings surfing the web or watching talk shows. After lunch which was usually leftovers or something out of the freezer, a great weariness would come over me and I simply had to lie down for a nap. Once a week I went for gentle yoga classes at the community center.
Gentle yoga is a euphemism for “I’m-too-old-to-bend-like-that!” My instructor and all the other students were silver haired and had grandchildren. They were a jolly bunch and always commended me on being extremely bendy. Once a week I did grocery shopping and found that all other retired people liked to shop early in the morning on a weekday when the crowds were thin. Made perfect sense to me if you wanted to avoid running over toddlers and not have to deal with traffic jams in every aisle.
It really didn’t help that I lived in the retirement state of Florida. My hair which was jet black up until my 30th year slowly started showing signs of greying. It was like my hair decided to catch up with my retired lifestyle. It wasn’t all bad. Being at the other end of the age spectrum prematurely, helped me gain a lot of wisdom and insight. Like the rat race was good for people who wanted to lose weight. If you have seen me you know that weight is not one of my problems! I was forced to slow down while everyone else was scurrying around being really busy. In fact they were all so busy that they had no time to spare. Me? I had all the time in the world. Time to idle. Time to read. Time to chat with friends. Time to simply let my mind wander.
Then my life took a drastic turn and I was pushed out of my involuntary retirement into a life full of busyness. Quite like in the movies where the protagonist is running happily across a corn field (in slow motion) and then suddenly she is scurrying around hurriedly trying to do a million things (in fast forward). Pretty comical!
I’m no longer bored and can’t sit around idling. I devote my mornings to household chores and cooking and then go to work in the afternoon. The thing I miss the most is my afternoon siesta. I also miss staying in my pajamas all day or having inspiration strike when I’m folding laundry or packing lunches.
Now I know why writers shut themselves up in their rooms or run off to some exotic and totally remote location to get away from it all. My mind is always racing these days and my creativity has taken a beating. I really don’t have the time to stand and stare. Haunting rooms is much simpler than trying to juggle everything and trying to be a superwoman. Simple but mildly unsatisfying. Not to mention the dire consequences that your brain has to endure from too much sleep, too little activity and hardly any stimulation.
Anyways in another decade or so the kids will be really gone (not just gone all day). Maybe I’ll have a career. Maybe I’ll be a best selling author with a vacation home in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe I’ll just be retired and living in an empty house full of memories. But I know I’ll be prepared. I know I will enjoy spending time with myself. My involuntary retirement years taught me that there is a time to be busy and a time to slow down. So Life, bring it on!
Written by Damayanti Chandrasekhar