Wakeup Call

One of the benefits of retirement is that if you choose to you can sleep in. Most days there is no reason to set an alarm or get up early, whatever that means to you. It’s a nice perk I guess but as a morning person I find myself climbing out of bed before it’s daylight. The deciding factor for me goes like this, lay in bed or drink coffee? Coffee wins out every time. It may have something to do with the fact that my mother never, and I mean never, allowed us to sleep late. She had no grace for what she called, “laying up in the bed all day” or unmade beds past daylight. Whatever the reason I’m a morning person and retirement hasn’t changed that.

It’s true that I’m usually in my comfy chair with coffee in hand before sunrise but in another way, I feel like I’ve been sleeping for a very long time. Remember the story of Rip Van Winkle? He fell asleep in the mountains and woke up 20 years later. Now that’s a nap for you! I told a friend just yesterday that I feel like I’m waking up after 2 years. It’s been two years since my husband of thirty-six years passed away and, in a way, it feels like I’ve been sleep walking all this time. Just recently it seems my eyes opened, I yawned really big, looked around and thought where have I been and what have I been doing? Wow, what a wakeup call.

Sometimes fairy tales come true, but this has been no Sleeping Beauty story. I didn’t fall asleep to be awakened by my handsome prince. No, my handsome prince went away forever, and I cried myself to sleep and slept for a very long time. You can’t sleep forever though, not even when you are retired. Eventually you wake up. It may be to a new reality, like retirement, but it’s your life and it’s real and as in all life it can be really good.

Your story may not be the same as mine but after reading many blogs and articles about retirement there seems to be a sort of naptime in the beginning for everyone. To me that makes perfect sense. We take naps because we are tired. Of course, we are tired. Some of us have been working almost all of our lives. Naps refresh our energy. Some of us need a good power nap because we’ve used up just about all the power we had. A nice nap can clear our minds, refresh our souls and help us see things in a totally new perspective. Naps are good and much needed and just may be the first thing we need to do after we retire.

Your naptime may last a month, several months or a year. Eventually the wakeup call will come. I’m awake now. What do I want to do? Notice I didn’t say what should I do, what do I need to do, what do I have to do but what do I WANT to do! I keep hearing the words to a recent popular song, tell me what you want, what you really, really want. Truth is I’m not sure of the answer but I’m excited to find out. One thing is true, my retirement is limitless!