I was thinking about retirement and primary colors this morning as I put together a batch of beef veggie soup.
I’ve been struck with the color combinations – red tomatoes, green beans, yellow corn. Very calico. The missing color is blue.
But who wants blue food, unless it is blueberries, which I would never put into beef vegetable soup. Maybe some would.
So we have a new combination – red, yellow and green. And it seems kind of like retirement. There’s this missing piece, but a new combination.
I miss my identity as a teacher and had no idea that it was so central to my self-concept. I have pieces but not a whole. I think there is a whole but I’m not completely sure what it will look like.
I’m beginning to relax with the luxury of all this unstructured time. There’s time to play the piano, linger in bed over breakfast, read, write. After all, I’ve bragged about all the creative things I would do with my time once I wasn’t working – all the great books I would read, all the writing I would do. But getting used to all this lack of structure has not been easy. “Wasting time” is not easy for me.
The calendar notes have changed. More days are filled with doctor and dentist appointments, church events, grandchild appointments, coffee with friends. No more forcing myself out of bed on cold New England mornings to jump in the shower and then hurry off to work. No more daily constraints on my time. Scary, but liberating.
Then there is mortality. Recent events hide in corners of my brain when I try to recall them. My excellent memory for names fails me periodically. Now and then I have forgotten my SSN. Yikes!
What will I leave behind? Will others continue to take me seriously, to value my opinions and worldview? What will be left when I am gone? How can I invest my days in the richest way?
“Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”.
