Can We Talk 2

Can It Get Better?

         I've been thinking a lot about retiring lately. I want to be my own boss, not jumping up to the alarm every day, and all the other perks of not going to a job. You still work, of course, but for yourself, for your welfare. I tell myself that my house will be tidier, the projects I've been putting off will be completed, the writing I've been dreaming up will actually go on paper, and I'll pursue all those postponed adventures that take time. (I still can't do the things that cost money.) I will be a happier, more fulfilled person.

         But all these other things keep creeping into my conversation with myself. My days seem to fill up pretty quickly already when I have a day off. I'll miss the people with whom I work. I'll let TV or other distractions get in the way of sewing or other handcrafts. My eyesight will fade and I won't be able to do detailed things. Money will become a bigger issue in a year or two. Maybe the perfect poem or a great novel just aren't in me. Maybe I never really had any talent, so work and obligations just became excuses. Maybe I'll be too lazy to go out to see friends or meet new people; I can be very complacent and self-entertaining. Maybe this really is as good as it gets.

         On one level that's depressing. If it doesn't get better, if we never really grow up or "arrive" or achieve our goals, we've just been spinning our wheels. On another level, it could be exciting to know that a major attitude adjustment could find us bliss right now. No, that's not sinking in. If we buy into the theory that the journey is the important part, not the arrival, then all the sacrifice and the hardship we endured for the sake of the ending was a waste. We didn't live it up in the here and now because of what we wanted "some" day.

         "Now" might be wonderful for some people, a nightmare for some others. For most of us, "here and now" is somewhere in between, mostly not so satisfying. I certainly want more, and I'm sure most people do.

         I've had major life upheavals, not completely of my own choosing. Illness, loss of job (several companies I worked for closed up for good), husband's problems, divorce, moving; these were thrust upon me for the most part. Deliberately choosing a major change is more intimidating than I expected. I'm surrounded by people, but I have to face this one on my own. I'm old, but not grown up. And maybe things will be different, but not better. You don't get to write a review of your life when it's over.