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)