So, it happens without fanfare. No ticker tape parade. Not even a “going away” party – mostly because I’m not actually going away. Instead, it happens the way I prefer it to happen: a simple fade to black. Calm. Quiet.
Today, my new life starts in earnest. In the end, it only took a little less than two weeks to go from high intensity to semi-retired. I woke up this morning and the lawn is still neatly mowed, the house is clean, there are groceries in the fridge, leftovers for dinner and- amazingly – I have complete control over my schedule. Today is the preview to my new “normal week”. I’ve got work to do but at the latest, I’ll be done in the early afternoon. And I don’t have to “run” anywhere. Literally. I can stay home.
It all begins.
As I sit here, chewing on a bagel and enjoying that first glorious cup of coffee, I am filled with gratitude. A younger me would have been filled with elation. The difference? Younger me had a lot of energy and this new-found time in my life would have been immediately repurposed into some home improvement or self-improvement project. Older me? I want to enjoy the quiet, the sunshine and a gentle breeze. I want to actually savor a cup of coffee vs. choking it down when it’s way too hot and makes me break out in a sweat. I want to enjoy the small details of my life. The furry ones sleeping because at 8 a.m. it’s already nap time; the view I can finally enjoy from my living room into my kitchen… .
There are a few things that I truly want to explore now that I’m semi-retired. First, I really do want to paint again, maybe even today. It’s just fun to putter around without the expectation that I will ever get better. I also want to finish writing my own book and read the books of others. I want to go for a long walk every day. At home, I want to reinstate the habit of making my bed every morning. And even though I’ve been doing a bang-up job of making dinners, I want to fully explore making healthy meals all of the time and helping this little family enjoy good, nutritious food all day long.
Gloriously, I now have time to help in the crush of planting and I look forward to seeing the garden rows neatly planted and slowly coming to full life. There is some laundry I can wash and hang today, giving me the ever-so-peaceful and satisfying “zen” of my clothesline.
This is my new life. It’s so sweetly simple, so genuinely unencumbered and so serenely calm. After the rush to finish and the rush to clean up home after I finished, it’s simply amazing to look around and realize that I am actually here. I actually made it.
All along, I now realize this is what I was headed for, even before that Yoga Nidra class and the idea of simple peace and back to when I married my husband and came to live out in this part of nowhere that we call ours. This is where I was always headed. Falling in love brought me to the spot. Slowly, I learned to wind down. From that Nidra class to resigning as CEO to my first level of part-time to here. I could not have gone simply from CEO to half-time. I am keenly aware that I often need to learn things the hard way. As I look around my nearly done house and out into my sun-filled backyard, I can feel my pulse quieting with every word I type. I understand now that I needed to go through this process.
I needed to release slowly. I felt a duty as a CEO that was always going to be painfully hard to walk away from. I was so used to being financially responsible that I couldn’t see an easy way to transition to less time and making less money and I didn’t necessarily value the tradeoff until now. But now that I’m here, I look back and think that all of those decisions that felt “right” at the time, were a little bit off. It should have always been about more life and less work in the work/life balance equation. I had to learn the hard way. The good news is that I am here now and this little family of one other human and three furry ones needs me here. And you know what? This is where I intend to stay.
The Yuppie Homesteader 