I was woken up around 4 am this morning due to an aching shoulder from playing iPad games too much the night before (that is a whole other story in itself). I started thinking about turning 65 next year.
Then to my mind, loud and clear, came news broadcasts describing events that may have happened to someone like me, a woman in her mid sixties. When you hear on the radio or television, "65 year grandmother wins the lottery", what do immediately think?
I think of some doddering old lady, bent over, walking with a cane who does not have long to live! Whaaat? That's me next year!!!!
So I looked up "senior citizen" in Wikipedia. "Senior citizen" in Wiki language is described as an elderly person and implies that the person is retired. It goes on to say that the person is over the retirement age of their country....65 in Canada. It is when I will start collecting Old Age Security Pension!
I vote we change the word to "jubiladas" (spanish for "new beginnings, joyful jubilation). Actually in Central America, it is a verb reflexive meaning "to play truant" or "to gain experience" (Caribbean meaning). Anything but "elderly", "senior citizen"....please!
So cheers to my fellow jubiladas/jubilados (girls and boys). We are having the best time in our lives!
I don't know why I did not want to write anything in my blog for two years after I retired. I guess I was so busy accumulating my experiences and figuring out what made me feel happy and what didn't, I did not feel ready to write.
So looking backwards........to the beginning of play world (PW). I had some strong convictions of what I would NEVER give up after I left the work world. One was my smart phone. Number two was my car, Molly Matrix. I associated these two possessions with independence.
After a couple of months into PW....I found out that I love being a passenger, love, love, love it! Hubby and I found out we really love road trips. Climbing into his truck and heading on an adventure rocks our boat. We have grown our friendship immensely in these past two years. We really enjoy each other's company.
And.....I never got any phone calls on my cell phone after leaving WW(work world). So we are down to one cell phone and have not had an inkling that we might be missing out on something. Of course, I am still attached at the hip to technology with my beloved iPad following everywhere I go so I have not completely "gone off the grid"!
Stress.....it is a foreign word to me now. Imagine your day starting out by rising when it is your 'natural wake up time', grabbing a cup of coffee and snuggling down on your favourite couch to read the newspaper front to back. (I am very mindful of what catches my attention...what I like to read about. I expand that information into further interests I could explore.) Then I hit 'play' on the iPod to be lifted away on powerful alternative music while performing my hour of exercise. I am mindful of every movement my body makes and how it feels while stretching and crunching and pushing. My breathing is deep and cleansing.
Welcome to PW. It is a gift that only years of hard work raising a family and developing a career can be fully appreciated when it arrives.
Ah well, it has almost been two years since I left the workforce to take on this new adventure called 'retirement'. I have not felt like writing about my journeys these past couple of years.
I am reading a book (that was given to me as a gift for retirement) called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. As I felt extremely happy retiring, I did not feel inspired to read this book. Not to worry, I am still extremely happy but the book caught my eye.
The author is also a happy person but she does not feel that she is appreciating all that life has to offer her. She decides to take on a project with varying tasks and focuses each month of the year. There are several sections that really have awakened my spirit. One in particular was the month of May. The author talks about getting serious about playing. She describes a technique on how to find out what you really like to do, what really gets your tail wagging, is to think back when you were about 10 years old. What were you playing?
Well, lordy be, at 10 years old, I was planting grass and flowers in forests to add beauty to the land around me!!! That was one of my favourite things to do as a child. I would have a team of kids following me around figuring out where to do our next bit of guerrilla gardening.
Guess what retirement has meant for me? Guerrilla gardening!! I find such sense of joy and peace and serenity changing drab environments into brilliant colours of the rainbow. I feel such a sense of getting to know my neighbours and my community when digging in a garden. This is a picture of a portion of a 6 acre City of Richmond park where hubby and I volunteer. We have 3 large garden beds we take care of with love and pride! Man, did I ever land right where I was supposed to land! Think back to what you loved to play at when you were 10 years old! Can you "play" again?
