Day 207 - distraction

 Today is the 4th day of the 30th week, the 26th day of the 7th month, the 207th day of 2023 [with only 150 shopping days left before Christmas], and:

• Americans With Disabilities Day 
• Armed Forces Unification Day
• Aunt and Uncles Day
• Esperanto Day
• FBI Day
• Holistic Therapy Day
• Independence Day - Liberia from the American Colonization Society in 1847 and Maldives from the UK in 1965
• International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem
• Kargi Vijay Diwas
• National All or Nothing Day
• National Bagelfest Day
• National Coffee Milkshake Day
• One Voice Day
• Tisha B'Av
• World Tofu Day

Quote of the day:

"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough"

~ Albert Einstein 

I've been working since I was 15 years old.  For six years, after I married my second husband, I was working as a homemaker, but after that I was back working first part-time, and then full-time after 1985.  And after 58 years?  I'm tired of it. I never defined myself by the different roles that I have filled for different organizations and I always quipped that I did not live to work but worked to live.  

Work just takes up way too much of my increasingly limited resources of time and attention these days.

But when I spoke rather wistfully of retiring, I was surprised that both of my kids reacted negatively to the idea.  They felt the fact that I am getting up in the morning and adhering to a schedule, forcing myself to concentrate on non-family issues, was beneficial and in the long run, would keep me going.  Oddly enough, both of them are home full time as cancer has placed them both on disability,  Neither has expressed that they missed work, but the fact that they are both so heartily in favor of me keeping on makes me wonder how they feel about being out of the workplace themselves.

What would I do differently with less time working?   

I wouldn't be too tired to go over and help out with my granddaughters for one thing, and perhaps even forge a closer relationship as they grow older.  My friend, who is blind and lives alone, needs far more help than she is getting right now, and I would be available for her .  And, well I'd be in world and be gaming more, no doubt, especially at first.   There are books waiting to be read, programs I want to watch, projects I want to sew or stitch.  Who knows, I might actually do some of the things around the apartment that I have been studiously ignoring - including getting rid of stuff  and downsizing

I don't think that I would be sitting around stewing over things that I cannot help, but there is little doubt, the irritant of work does provide distraction [as well as a salary].