Hello all! Sorry, I was not here last week. I was attending a momentous event that left me too emotionally drained to give the content my readers deserve. Going forward, I will let you know if I will miss a week.

In my last post, I told you about my plans to enter semi-retirement. Well, I have decided to change that. I am fully retired. I have a small part-time job to give me structure. And honestly, that is all it does. I fell into the perfect position to give me a good reason to wake up. I drive about 35 minutes from my house on one of the most picturesque roads known to man through the Vermont mountains. When I arrive, I sit in a small office and read. My only other obligation is to check the mail at this location, and if any is received, mail it out via FedEx, which is on my way home. The kind of job I had always dreamed of, with it only being three hours per day, is enough time to get into a good book, but not too much that I am bored.

So, in the span of a weekend, I went from 10-14 hour days at a job I wasn’t paid enough for my hard work, knowledge, and experience to being paid an outstanding amount for sitting and reading. So far, that is what I have done. But when I get home by 1 pm every day, I have a lot of hours to fill. Suddenly, the pressure to fill these hours was immense. I mean, just like almost everyone, my whole adult life has been prioritizing tasks because you only have so much free time. Self-care is essential, especially when you only have 2 days most weeks to accomplish all things that you cannot do on a typical workday. Sundays used to be my sacred day. Don’t ask me to leave my house that day cause it ain’t happening. I spent those Sundays watching tv, napping, and stressing about the following week. I have been freed from that. So, how do I turn this early retirement into something productive? Well, anyone? Seriously, who wants to help me out here.

Well, I started looking at many tasks that I let utterly fall by the wayside or ones I have always wanted to do. Things have come into unexpected focus. I have the time now. Life’s biggest excuse has been taken away from me, and I am unsure how I feel about it. “One day, when I have the time” is no longer a dream. I have no excuses. I have nothing to hide behind.

I am now accountable for what I do with my time. Not in the way I was with a boss but to myself. If I don’t accomplish anything one week, I have no one to answer to but myself, and I am a tough cookie!!! House is a mess? Well, you are home 20 hours a day! What the hell? Why are your college assignments not completed? You have so much time. I am finding that I am pretty tough on myself and trying instead to understand why I am so upset and easily angered by my actions. That one is rough. All the past traumas in my life have created this array of coping mechanisms. Some of these traumas are your typical GenX traumas. We are the forgotten generation of kids born during a transition period in the country. also had personal traumas that people have had to deal with throughout time. So many of our actions are dictated by the melting pot that is our own life. Throw in some bullying, a dash of mental illness, past abuse, lack of confidence, and not having the tools I needed to succeed. Some of these are easier to overcome than others, but all are tough. As I try to figure out the correct route, I do know one thing. If someone told me this would be my life six years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. I was living a sorrowful existence. was working for a horrific boss, and I still suffer from PTSD; I was living just barely above paycheck to paycheck, didn’t have a social life, and had been single for so long that I was beginning to think I would never find the right one. , somehow, never gave up hope. Now, I am living in my own home as a writer, working for a boss who never bothers me, happily married, with all of the time in the world.

Until next week…….