Tag Archives: retirement

03.05.21
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Where I find myself this Friday afternoon

Or at least I think its Friday…quite frankly, I really have no idea what day it is anymore. COVID quarantine on the heels of retirement joined together with a personality that was always busy living my job and filling my day’s off with sanity recovery, chores and rules. One would think having no rules, no need for sanity and time on ones hands, one might do all of those things I complained I couldn’t get done while I was working. I frequently go to bed and have stress filled organizing dreams because I don’t really want to go to bed…I have things I want to do… I work harder in my dreams that I do during any other time of the day.

Some might say these unstructured days are good for the soul and I don’t argue that point. The difference is when I fail to do the things I want to do because I have an overactive mind and the glimpse of something shiny has me googling, shopping and looking for books to read on Amazon or scanning Twitter and Facebook, watching YouTube videos and in the blink of an eye clicking on my next second of unstructured entertainment.

Today while doing the recommended “homework-exercises” from my Heartmath.com class from Saturday mornings, I was able to go within using a technique “Heart Math Point 0”. Asking my heart “What clearing for a mental, emotional or physical healing would be fulfilling to invest my energy at this time”. Writing down my hearts intention became this blog post. I will endeavor to go within and listen to myself on a daily basis. Listen within to quiet the monkey mind and fill my day with intentional joy rather than being controlled by the next sparkling thing that passes before my eyes into my ego mind.

Namaste

02.13.15
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A year passes ridiculously fast at this age!

1 year ago today, I walked out of the radio room at Jasper County for the last time…and 1 year ago today, Vapur of Lee’s Summit opened it’s doors.

It has been like driving through an unincorporated town in which you can’t blink or you will miss it.

The only decisions I have regretted after a year is what color I had the living room and bedroom painted.

I’m gonna bloom where I was planted but give me another month, I really do not like the cold!

Until next time….

12.08.14
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The 10 year cycles of my discontent#####

I stepped on the scales this morning and my head nearly burst…I’m finally within 1.2 pounds of losing 60 pounds.  My morning ritual of crawling back into bed with my IPAD and catching up with everyone’s happenings over night was interrupted with trying to remember where I was in my life when i weighed what I weigh this morning.  Some in my life would say OMG you don’t need to analyze this…but as Dr Phil says…the best way to understand the future is to look at the past.  A little paraphrasing there.

Its kind of disarming to realize that I can look at my past – and I’m talking about the last 35 years of my past – to realize that I can, in fact, remember to a pretty accurate degree what I weighed at certain points in my life….decades in my life.  Creeping up and down in my child bearing years of the 1980’s.  A 50 pound weight loss in the early 90’s  A continuing upward shot after my dad died in 2001 with the help of antidepressants – a 90 pound gain until 2011 where I once again dropped 50 pounds then back up 50 pounds until March of this year.  I have determined that I’m actually pretty good at gaining weight and dropping weight…but this is where the cycle has to stop.  I’m chock full of reasons I gained and lost weight.  All of them have to do with emotions!!  What I’m hoping is that knowledge is power.

I’m not the same person I was in February of 2014 – Sometimes when I’m in the top of my day, I will turn to him and say,  I’m so happy!  The weight doesn’t figure in to those times – or if they do, I’m not thinking about it.  Its my emotional circumstances which have given me piece.  I’m literally in a different place.  The day I retired, I discarded that life and moved away from that life, the stress, the angst, the hate…the discontent.  With this new start, I realized that I wanted to live… I want to be healthy, I want to be happy and with the anonymity, I have had the chance to cleanse and start over.  I’m confident it saved my life.

Until next time….

10.02.14
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Rain, clouds, sun….

When I went into the shower this morning, it was raining….a nice gentle rain…when I came out of the shower the sun was poking thru the clouds…I have always appreciated this act of Mother Nature because it always reminded me of appreciating the good times after you have weathered the bad times.

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Then my very next thought was (don’t hate me because I’m retired) that every day of retirement is like summer. I no longer look at the forecast and have angst because it s going to rain or snow or storm on my days off…if the weather doesn’t meet my particular needs, I can change what I’m going to do that day. Every day of retirement, I appreciate something new that I had not realized would be a perk.

Don’t hate me because I’m retired just trust me that when it comes, it will be worth all of the agony of the daily grind that you are calling life right now.

Until next time…..

09.06.14
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It has been a long, hot summer

This morning, Truman and I have decided to lounge in bed. I’ve been catching up on what everyone thinks and is doing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WordPress…Truman is being a little more productive.

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He and I slept with the deck door open last night and this morning’s cool breeze and view has reminded me about how much I love retirement!

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We are days away from our Italy adventure…I have everything pretty much taken care of…the not pretty much is laundry and packing. I was awake until 2:30 this morning reading reviews about places I’m going to visit. I got that giddy feeling in my solar plexus…the one that feels good, feels like you almost could giggle, feelings of excitement and just the feeling of awe. I love an adventure.

until next time….

02.08.14
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The ugliness…

I’ve known for the last few years that I’m not the person I used to be…I stopped laughing…the healthy laugh, I was still smiling and was still using so-called gallows humor to help relieve stress but really laughing about something that tickles you way deep inside – it had stopped.  Emergency workers – whether they are EMS personnel, cops, nurses, dispatchers can laugh and eat their way thru a conversation about horrible things…the above mentioned HAVE to laugh their way thru their job or they would totally end their life bonkers swinging from the end of a rope from the top of a high ceiling.  I always go back to the story of my shift dispatch partner taking a particularly disgusting call that would make the normal person do a little shiver and shut down.  She took the call, got EMS enroute and went back to eating her hamburger.  I, who often congratulated myself on my ability to cope, turned to her and said OMG stop eating.  It has been a story retold several times in the dispatch center as a stress reliever for someone else taking a particular nasty call that no one should have happen to them, let alone anyone else should have to know about.

It’s the nature of the beast.  But years and years of it changes who you are.  I found myself being more normal after spending the afternoon with my old friend, Gena.  Normal is probably not the appropriate word…but I felt like my old self.  I didn’t feel the negativity and the dread in my soul that I so often feel… Waking up on Valentine’s Day, I will be retired.  I will be a former 911 operator – it was an incredible career.  I will always have my memories.  I’ve delivered babies over the phone, I’ve been the very last person to ever speak to someone taking their last breath.  I always remember the black lung victim who passed as the ambulance was approaching his door, murders, plane crashes, horrific traffic accidents, house fires and all of the people I have referred to as assholes after hitting release on the phone….many will always be remembered.   I’m so glad I’m done…I’m very tired of the ugliness…I hope to put those rose colored glasses back on and laugh until I can’t breath.

Until next time….

12.18.13
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Since my last post about dreaming…I’ve been on a journey.  Seems Newton dreams and Pleasant Hill dreams are different from each other.  The morning waking up from the dream about a former fake friend and her betrayal and hatefulness kind of set the tone for the day.  Apparently I still have some anger to deal with.  I tried the route of block, ignore and move on but she is still in there somewhere dispersing ugliness.

It’s very hard to leave my grandbaby, the home and the weather to come back to Iowa.  Kind of in a funk about the job.  Not sure where I belong anymore.  I want to hand off the baton to the next supervisor so he can hit the ground running and while I’m ready to give it all up, I’m troubled with doing the job for 30 years – the massive amounts of technical information I’ve taken in the last 3 years and then what.  I just stop thinking about it?  It’s called retirement…no one really helps you prepare for it anymore than the lack of preparation when you become an empty nester.  I guess it’s one of those things you figure out as you go.  Just like everything else in life.

Not sure what I’m supposed to do today.  I’m not short on things I need to start or finish.  Just a little melancholy with a huge helping of lack of ambition.

Until next time….

07.20.13
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Hot air

When I backed out of the driveway this morning, I noticed the neighborhood hot air balloon over in the west…someone must have gotten up early to see the sun rise.  This is not an unusual site in my neck of the woods…I think the local hot air balloon guy gets quite a bit of business.  I never like to say never…so I will say it is highly unlikely that I will EVER float up into the sky in a hot air balloon.  I'm no more likely to stand on the wing of an airplane with  the tank of my gas grill hooked to a cigarette lighter with a chiffon scarf over my head.

I'm drinking my first cup of coffee, I've had my Special K with almond milk and now I'm just patiently waiting for the phone to ring so I can be involved in someone else's ugliness…it's a fact of life – no wonder dispatchers smoke, drink coffee, weigh too much, have low energy, are cynical and have an involuntary dread reflex whenever they hear a phone ring no matter where they are.  The bright spot in my life is I've finally talked to the state public employee retirement folks and I will be free of these chains about 3 months earlier than I had expected.  There is nothing….NOTHING…bad about that.  It looks like I will be working my last day on March 30th of 2014 and will spread my wings and fly!!!!

I now have hope……..

Until next time….