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It’s Friday, I drove 5-1/2.hours yesterday to get to my happy place – yeah, Cape Cod. We are here for a few days.
It’s very quiet, silent is a good word and it snowed an inch or so last night.
But as I sit here, I’m thinking what do we have to do today? Yesterday before leaving NJ there was a doctors appointment. Today there is nothing, I feel like there should be something to do, somewhere to go.
Fifteen years retired and the idea of nothing to do can be annoying. It sure is a long glide path from the days I was in the office at 6:00 AM and left twelve hours later.
I suppose I could read a book, or walk the dog – if I had a dog. I could walk to the beach- but risk slipping on the snow?
One thing I will do is explore what is happening in the world via my remaining iPad. My older, smaller, lighter one conked out yesterday. There is something to do, go buy a replacement.
If I am giving the impression retirement is boring-not so. Actually, every day seems filled with something, even the mundane. The fact is today we will go shopping at some point.
I don’t mind grocery shopping, my watch tells me I get a lot of steps in walking up and down the aisles. That’s not all by chance. I make a list, but when I get to the store I try to remember it without looking. That often leads to backtracking all over the store when I finally check the list. Clever, right? Who else but a senior citizen would do that?
Next week will be busy, my car needs service and we will be packing – that’s is Connie will, for our drive to Florida.
I once dreamed of playing golf every day. The reality is I play two days a week 7-8 months of the year. Guess what, that’s enough for me.
Anything you want to do or not do is fine, no pressure – except if you promised to do a few DIY projects around the house. You’re on your own. Luckily I have been banned from such projects and one son enjoys doing them.
The thing is, retirement doesn’t need an activity plan, boredom probably is not a worry and you may welcome do nothing days as I do.
One month into full time requirement I’m starting to adjust from my schedule of being told when, what, where, etc. of my career.
I’ve found that biggest stress of retirement was stressing about it rather than taking each day as it comes.
Each day comes and goes. Each day is filled as they’ve always been full, except differently with what I want to do instead of my employer. And I’m not pressure by time limits to get anything done
I found that retirement made me take an attitude that I don’t have together everything done in the yard (which I enjoy) in one day. No more 8,10,12 days in the yard. Luckily(?) it coincided with no longer having the capacity to do so despite working out nearly every day of the week.
This past year I was way too busy with my responsibilities as board co-chair of the nonprofit daycare center that I’ve mentioned here. My co-chair is a fulltime teacher, mom and wife, so responding to emergency texts, phone calls and emails mostly fell to me. There was a lot going on. Emergencies. Unpleasant surprises. Brief calm. Staff changes. More unpleasant surprises. My do-nothing days dwindled. Even my usual routines of a neighborhood walk, weekly craft group at my church, etc., were interrupted. 2025 is looking much better; the lists of “must-do today (or later this week)” are shorter. It’s a good feeling, and the best part is that my efforts weren’t in vain: The center is open, welcoming and has a terrific staff caring for the children of our community’s families. Yay!
I’ve been retired 14 years. I think do-nothing days are good but you also need something meaningful to do in retirement. For me, as well as others in the HD community, it’s volunteering with the AARP Tax Aide program. It keeps me busy a few days a week January through the middle of April and gives me a sense of accomplishment and contributing to my community. After that I can play golf or catch up on my reading/TV.
Before I retired I thought I would have time to catch up on TV shows and movies I missed while I was working. I’ve been retired 4-1/2 years now, I do manage to watch a movie every so often, but I don’t have the kind of free time to catch up on all those shows – and I don’t miss it. There are so many things to do and sitting down to watch television during the day just hasn’t occurred yet.
Amazing how those waking hours get filled up quickly.
As I count down (literally) to retirement, I’m looking forward to having regular “nothing-to-do” days sprinkled into every week. Not every day and not too many of them; I’m not wired that way. But over the last few years, I’ve realized that the days I wake up with little or no responsibilities pressing (say a weekend day or a break between quarters) are the days I wake up happiest. Too many decades of too much to do have caught up with me.
Just making a nice lunch or dinner, taking a walk, and working on the latest book in my Kindle queue will be plenty on those kinds of days. Oh, maybe a nap.
we had 4 y/o granddaughter today and all 3 of us took a nap. It was great! Chris
I never plan a nap, but if I sit down around 3:00PM, it’s lights out.