As the holidays drew near, it was time to return to Texas in order to spend time with the family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our original plan was to return to Panama just after the first of the year, but the tornado that hit our little town the end of May left us with a number of things to do around the house before leaving again. Also, my high school graduating class began planning our 50th class reunion for this Spring, so we decided we would just wait until after the reunion to return.
As a reminder, I retired from almost 30 years of teaching the end of May of 2024, we left for Panama in July, and my husband retired the end of July, 2024. By August 1, we had found a place to live until returning home just before Thanksgiving and quickly settled into routines there. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings I attended water aerobics in the morning. Mike almost always did his walks on the beach every morning and I would sometimes join him on those Tuesdays and Thursdays when I was free. We would get ready for whatever the day had in store by mid morning and have brunch (sometimes early breakfast, sometimes late breakfast, sometimes lunch). If the day was nice, we often ended up at the pool by 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. I found a lot of time to read, work on my website/blog, and add some chapters to a novel I started many years ago but put aside until I had more time. Mondays were half-price pizza days at one of the local restaurants, and on Tuesday late afternoons, I did line dancing classes. Wednesday afternoons were happy hour at our favorite bar/restaurant down the street and half-price wing days at a different local restaurant, Thursday offered a lot of options; half-price burgers at the Bench, trivia at 5:00 at Picasso’s, then stick around for karaoke at 7:00, and DJ Nawleans for music and dancing at 9:00. Live music could be found at a variety of places on Fridays and Saturdays. Thursday became our regular shopping day – taxi into town, have lunch, shop for anything we might need, and buy groceries before taxiing back home to hit the pool then decide which of the activities we were up for that evening. We would periodically take a bus to the city or a day trip to one of the neighboring communities or beaches. Life was simple, relaxing, and totally grand. We had developed a new community of friends and enjoyed seeing and doing things with them. I miss those friends.
But alas, time to return home. That is when reality set in. Being home again was different. We didn’t really have a routine for being home without work to go to. We honestly didn’t know what to do with ourselves for awhile. We had so much to do but found it hard to find the motivation to do it. And on top of that, it was difficult to want to start a project in the middle of the holidays. We kept finding excuses to put things off…I’ll get started on that after Christmas, that needs to get done but I don’t want to be in the middle of something at Christmas, etc., so little was getting done. Don’t get me wrong, I spent a lot of time catching up with the kids and grandkids, getting Christmas shopping done last minute, and all those kinds of things, but the productivity was lacking. The husband was a total grouch the first couple of weeks, and I may have been too, but grace was given because I realized we just didn’t know what to do with ourselves for awhile. I finally decided that if I was going to get anything done, I needed to make a “To Do List” for the week and break it down to daily tasks. It helped me focus on getting something accomplished. I still spent (and still do) a lot of time reading. I also decided to get on the substitute list at my old school district and work on the days I wanted to. However, before that became a reality, I started working part-time at my daughter’s school to help them out until they found a full-time teacher replacement for a position they needed to fill. I still plan to sub some when done with this gig.
In the meantime, Mike has settled in and has been working on some of the little projects we needed done around the house, he has started doing something with a small group of retired friends once a week, and does stuff around the house while I am at work on the days I’m out. He also keeps up with our budget and spending, so we are starting to settle in here as well, it just seems easier to “put things off until tomorrow,” as they say. But, in the big scheme of things, isn’t that what retirement is all about?
All of this to say, I think after retiring, different people take different amounts of time to find their new normal. I have found that instead of letting things upset me, giving into mood swings or grumpiness, or getting snappy when things don’t go how I think they should, I try to take a deep breath and impart grace to myself, my family, or a total stranger. Our normal has changed and continues to evolve, and no matter the ups and downs, I can honestly say that I have zero regrets regarding retirement and will continue to live my best life. After all, in a few short months we will be back in paradise.
Until next time….Diane