Life is interesting when you get into your retirement years. The time opens up and responsibilities fade away - and you now get to choose what you want to do.
While freedom sounds good - I feel that it is also complicated.
I believe I was able to hide behind responsibilities and that it is easier to just get in line and do a job. It is much harder to not waste a life.
A part of me wants to make a difference in my life. I want to live a life I don't regret.
This first year I learned I am a homebody.
I can let time slip by being lazy.
I don't want to coast my last years of my life - I want to be intentional.
I want to have dreams and then fulfill them.
I don't even know though, what my dreams are.
I think dreaming was a luxury, I never entertained.
I first need to learn how to dream and seek out things that will add color and texture to my life.
I have been responsible for others for so so many years. Responsibility overshadows dreams.
I don't know if I was taught not to dream; but I wasn't taught to dream.
It seems fanciful and nonsensical.
Like life wasn't meant for dreams but built for responsibility.
Live like you are dying becomes more real after retirement. You enter into the stage of the end. There isn't another big milestone after retirement - this is it - until we exit the stage.
I want live live.
To do things that have meaning.
and depth to me.
As I exited out of my dysfunctional family - I was very engaged in doing what was best to leave a legacy that was less toxic. What I may have failed to do was to show how to live a fanciful life.
A life of dreams, adventures and joy and love.
How now to fancy up my life and add tone and texture and glitter.
It was important for me to live my truth, to find my authenticity - to drill down to the core of who I am and heal my brokenness. And, it is equally important now to have fun. To live joyfully and dream of fun things.
I get a catch in my throat of how responsible I have been and how dreamless.
There is a feeling of guilt even contemplating fanciful just for me. Or gifting me and myself nonsensical adventures.
I don't yet know who I will be when I grow up.
Perhaps we have dreams - dreams for our children and our grandchildren. We have dreams of being an example of a mom who does hard things. Just not fancy dreams.
Instead of retirement years, we should call these dream years.
Retirement means to stop working. There should be another word for it - when we now have time to dream.
I looked up the word dream and the second part is this "indulge in daydreams or fantasies about something greatly desired. "she had dreamed of a trip to Italy."
Indulging in daydreams or fantasies isn't something I have done - especially just for me.
Just for me does seem indulgent.
I am going to become indulgent and dream.
Learning to dream beyond retirement.
