Saturday, January 28, 2023

The Ticktock of the Retirement Clock


The clock is still ticking.

 

I didn’t expect that. I was pretty sure that when I clocked out for the last time on my last day of work that my fight for time was over. Days stretched out endlessly before me, free of schedules, obligations, and claims upon the twenty-four hours I was granted each day. And truly I rejoiced in that, especially in the first weeks after the holiday celebrations were over and it was time to start a new year, a new kind of life… a new way of living.

 

I had been preparing for these moments from the start of the previous year. Having finally made the decision to retire, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t waste the freedom I would so soon attain by letting the days go by unscheduled. I knew from experience that free time without pre-planning can fly by in no time and turn into lost time …leaving only feelings of regret instead of joy or accomplishment. So to avert that tragedy, I started making a list of ways to occupy my time, once I had time to spare. And I found that the more I pondered the subject, the more projects I came up with. Not by accident, I’m sure, people came alongside me occasionally who would unknowingly feed my enthusiasm for an idea or steer me in a direction I’m sure God intended for me to head. As the list lengthened, so did my excitement for the ideas it contained. Some were simple, even silly suggestions that just struck my fancy, while others had a more meaningful purpose behind them, meant to benefit me or others in a particular way.

 

Three weeks have now passed, and I’m feeling a little retrospective. It’s early times yet, but I’m proud of having jumped in and pushed myself to start on the first  of the goals that I wanted to focus on in the first month of the year. It is a constant battle, I’m beginning to realize, to keep moving forward, aware as I am that there are forces working against me, much as gravity slows and eventually stops a rolling stone. I want to keep the momentum going.  So I’m praying that the wind of the Spirit blows continuously to fill my sails and propel me forward.

 

I did think that once free of the forty-hour work week, I’d have plenty of time for whatever took my fancy. And yet, surprisingly, I’m still feeling time pressure. The time clock is no longer my master, but Father Time is still controlling my life. The scheduling of the hours allotted to me is now mine to choose, but the length of time I have in which to accomplish it all has a finite end. And I feel a bit like I’m racing the clock to fit all that I want to do in the time that I have left. The urgency I feel thus tends to rob each day and its activities of their joy, which was the pursuit of the projects in the first place. 

 

One of the items on my list was to get back to playing the piano for pleasure. Anxious to keep my mind busy with learning new things, I ordered a book of sheet music for simple melodies written by a pianist I discovered online. I vowed to learn new selections from the book on a regular basis, even as I played again pieces I’d learned and loved in my younger years. Anxious to get the timing right while practicing, I downloaded a metronome app to my phone to issue a steady beat that I would play along to. But because I couldn’t figure out how to use the app properly, the beat never changed, no matter how I tried to change the speed in the settings. All that it did was set the dogs in the house to barking furiously, and if that wasn’t enough, the steady tick-tick-tick soon started to drive me a little crazy, as well. Scrambling to fit all the notes between the ticks of each measure  turned my practice period into a chore rather than a joy. The beauty of the song was lost in the process of trying to play it too perfectly. Plus, the app was expensive in terms of cell phone battery life. I was soon done with it and deleted it off my phone.

 

And so today I’m doing the same with the way I’ve been hitting my lists… deleting the need to cram everything in the measure of days I have left before I reach the end of my song. I’m in danger of losing the beautiful melody retirement was supposed to be by controlling it too rigidly. Instead, I plan to take life just one measure at a time, seek the Lord’s direction for it, and simply play it well, to the best of my ability, rejoicing in the music that comes out of each day.

 

 “Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days…” (Psalm 39:4 KJV)

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Delighting in a Day-dream

 


One hundred movies in a year, selected off a scratch-off poster that now hangs on my bedroom wall – another retirement activity, selected off the list of things to keep me occupied and engaged rather than bored and idle in my newly gained freedom from schedules and obligations. Eagerly I'd begun, and thus I soon found myself settled in and ready to watch Movie #2 of the year: The Sixth Sense. Never a fan of the horror/thriller genre, it was an odd choice for me, but it was a movie I'd have to watch sometime if I were to accomplish my goal. And so it began...


Surprisingly, I loved the movie. Oh, I jumped and gasped my way through many scenes, but I was mostly taken by the incredible acting of the young star, a boy of just 11 years old. One frequently-quoted line from the film stayed with me, as apparently it has with others...


I see dead people.”


Surprised that I was still thinking of those words a few days later, I wondered why. It was then I realized that it's because I have several friends who do the same... and perhaps I am a little jealous that I don't.


Repeatedly on Facebook I scroll across posts detailing people's nocturnal visits with departed loved ones in their dreams. The clarity with which they describe those encounters, the laughter they enjoyed, and the peace and happiness they experience upon awakening inspires a little envy in the heart of this one whose nighttime slumber is devoid of any such interactions that I l can later remember and recount.


I, too, have departed loved ones I would so love to see and spend time with again. I wonder if perhaps the issue is that I sleep too deeply, seemingly never getting enough hours of the same, to enter and play in the realms where dreams abound.


Surprisingly, science seems to support that thought. A study suggests that “while we dream all throughout the night, it's easier for us to remember dreams that occurred during the REM stage of sleep. And people may miss out on REM sleep by cutting sleep short.” However in the few weeks since I left the working world, the hours I devote to sleep have become luxuriously lengthy. Still no change in the dream pattern; maybe I just need to give it more time.

 

The dream study went on to say that day-dreaming is much like the nighttime version of the same in terms of activity in the brain. Goodness knows, I'm good at that... maybe I'm “dreaming” more than I realize. And suddenly an instance occurred that seemed to prove the point.


I was sitting in church last Sunday morning, and something suddenly triggered thoughts of my late husband. I don't know exactly what it was... perhaps the song selection, one we both liked, that took me back to the times we used to worship together in the years before cancer stole so much. Gone three years now, my memories of Jim have been stuck in the last three months of his life when life itself suddenly became so difficult... adjusting to the changes we had to make because of his illness, to simply making it through each day and long night just to get to the next one and do the same. The struggling version of my husband was the only one I seemed able to pull up in my memories with any regularity, perhaps because that was the last one I saw.


Until that morning. Suddenly the laughing, smiling, joke-telling version of the man I loved was back. For just a few moments I was able to see him again as he once was... and it was wonderful. Perhaps the best part of the episode is that it has remained with me. The healthy version of my husband is now the last one I've seen... and I seem at last to be able to hold on to that vision. How incredible that in just a few moments one can receive such a powerful gift!


Apparently I was wrong in my earlier assumption. I do see dead people... or maybe just the one I needed to the most... and I am ever so grateful.


And when that which is mortal puts on immortality, and what now decays is exchanged for what will never decay, then the Scripture will be fulfilled that says: Death is swallowed up by a triumphant victory! So death, tell me, where is your victory? Tell me death, where is your sting?”

(1 Corinthians 15:54-55 TPT)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...