I was only thinking yesterday how easily and quickly life can change. Two years ago a marriage in our family simply ended (not mine thankfully, and actually not too ’simply’ – divorce was never meant to be simple!). And earlier this year a life simply ended (yes it was fairly simple – at 95, Dad’s passing was not complicated, not unexpected, but not welcome either). And now it’s me who’s on the threshold of something very different, life after life, retirement. Which is very complicated, long expected, and not altogether welcome!
As a self-employed person my work was my life. I had trained a succession of younger people to carry it on after me. ‘Very far-sighted’ I hear you say. Indeed, and costly too – their salaries have reduced my own income for the last few years. And unfortunately the business occupied the premises that was intended to be my pension, so taking that pension meant closing (or moving) the business and the people. For the time being we’ll charge a rent and hope they run it successfully and keep up with the rent.
So here we are. Time to get on with it. Time to step back and let someone else do what I did with the same passion and flair I used to have. Time to reshape my life around new priorities, new ‘interests’ (how on earth does one find new interests?), thankfully within the same family and with Sue.
But how hard it seemed and how long it has taken! Nothing clicked into place.
Yet it is only now it is beginning that I feel it just might be possible. Only now am I beginning to feel a gentle surge of excitement about what new horizons may open for me at the start of a new life. I’m beginning to feel again that sense of anticipation I remember from my first day at Big School! Maybe there is life after life.
