My first favorite time is getting home after work. I love home.
After being home and doing the necessary things such as eating, doing a few household chores, walking Oscar, my second best time is bedtime. As we've gotten older, we go to bed earlier, say 8:00, sometimes as early as 7:30 if it has been an especially hectic day. Not always, but most nights. Gloaming. Dusk. When the sun has set but there is still a little light. A couple of evenings ago I saw the first fireflies of the summer, twinkling in the dark grass.
After the usual shower, jammies on, gathering my book, sometimes more than one, I'm reading, I'm ready to prop up in bed under the reading lamp for my final wind-down. That lasts at most about 20 minutes. I'm usually so sleepy by then I can just drop the book in the floor, reach up and turn the lamp off and snuggle down under the heavy cotton sheets. Within minutes I'm asleep to the comforting whir of the fan.
How did we ever get ready to go out for meetings at 7:00? (Paul still does. He has more stamina than I do!) I look back even 10 years ago, certainly 20 or 25, and think of all I used to do: sewing, cross-stitching, chauffering Amy here and there, cleaning house and ironing. I don't do any of that any more, and it takes me all day to do what little I do! We talk about it at work - we've all slowed down. Bren and I talk about it - we believe in "resting." That's what Southern ladies do! Especially if they are of a certain age!
My Least Favorite Times
Waking up at 2:00 A.M. unable to go back to sleep.
Getting up at 6:30 (I really try for 6:00... but...).
I am not a morning person and again, the older I get, the less I like getting up and doing the routine things to get ready to go to work, all within an hour. Sometimes that involves walking Oscar, like this morning. He didn't want to go. He obviously didn't have to go, because we circled the block with no results except he was thirsty and I was hot.
Retirement is looking better all the time. I was always in favor of it, almost joining the retiree ranks in January, but decided to stay on a while. When I was 50 I would think, oh, only 10 or 12 more years. And just look at all the things I will get to do! Travel, play in paints, read, read, read! Lately I have begun sorting through all those books, giving them new homes; wondering if all those paints are not going to be dried out; thinking that a trip to Sher's seems like such a long way off instead of only 4 hours.
Then Paul comes by and mentions a long-time friend whose cancer has recurred. She told me not long ago she planned to retire this summer I believe. Paul said he was told she is going to by the end of the month, and that this time she didn't think she was going to have treatments... Six in the morning doesn't seem so bad after all...
I'm thankful for all my favorite times of the day. Lunch hours reading the comics or a book at work. Lunch with friends. Sitting and talking to Paul about our days at work. Calls to Amy, Sher, talking about our "Marbles," the bookstore, crafts. Emails to and from Bren. Reading blogs by young friends who have small children, seeing them "grow up in pictures," reading about their lives. Being next on the library list for a much anticipated new book. Grace for another day.
"Some old people" have so much to be thankful for...
No comments:
Post a Comment