Just the Beginning

In contrast to my new-ish “in their own time” attitude about the  longer term lifestyle (and me-style ) changes, I’m still amazed at how long it takes me to get task-like things done (big and little) . For example, I’ve had a stack of things to drop off at the Goodwill drop box by the front door for almost two weeks. (Is that long? Seems like it in that there weren’t 40+ hours of work in those weeks.) 

Starting out, I had some vague notion that by six weeks in, I’d have picked up the pace a bit. So I keep expecting that any day now I will (or should) be noticeably working through that to-do list. Why. I don’t need to. That is so work-world thinking; so time-urgency perception. And I actually have gotten quite a bit done bit-by-bit. I guess I’m thinking that I’ll be “done” at some point. That’s silly. I will get through some of the extraordinary things that have been on the list for years (e.g. gutters and water caching system) but there will always be on-going.

My friend Jane said I'm still recuperating. She's had friends who mostly slept ... for months. Indeed, there is an urban myth/folklore that it takes about two years to settle in after retirement. I’m not sure where I’ve read or heard it, but I’ve repeated it to others as fact so it must be true. So barely six weeks, part of which I was on a road trip, isn’t very long really. I think I need a change of perspective on what is a long time. I need to see this as just the beginning of a long next phase of my life. I had better work on a shift of thinking. I need to re-read the Many Things in Their Own Time post!