Relaxation

About four weeks ago, I retired from Brigham Young University. I had worked there for 29 1/2 years and it has been strange to be at home and not on vacation. Every day seemed like a Saturday; I kept thinking, "I need to go and buy this as tomorrow's Sunday." Then I would realize that it was only Tuesday and I could do that the next day. On Memorial Day Monday, I met Angie and Clint at Sundance where we had lunch and watched the mountain bike races. While I was sitting outside with the dogs and Angie and Clint were buying a sandwich, I had an epiphany. I was enjoying the peace and beauty of the place even though there were many people milling about. But, for once in many, many years I was not thinking about all the things I had to do at home. It seems for years as though I couldn't really be engaged and enjoy the holidays because in the back of my mind I felt I was wasting time because I had so much to do at home, an opportunity to get caught up with household chores that were often neglected because of my busy life. I realized then that for years I have not really relaxed, even on my days off. And even if I didn't accomplish much at home (I felt overwhelmed with it all even then) my focus was on chores and sometimes what needed to be done at work. Talk about a workaholic! And now, after four years I am actually sitting down to write on this blog. The last four years have been busy with new grandchildren and visits to Scotland and to various conferences. But the worst was the last two years when I was so busy I think I was actually depressed as I felt so harried all the time. There were more and more stresses at work with conflicts with people and the workload and it wasn't until I retired that I realized how stressed I really was. Now, I am hurting from unaccustomed "hard labor" as I have been working in my garden to prepare it for the book group's annual garden party. It has really been neglected for the past two years (as has the house). That has been somewhat stressful too as some of the work that I wanted to get done---the concrete work, reconfiguring of the sprinkler system---is not going to happen before I leave on my trip to Washington. But, it will get done eventually, not just in the time frame I wanted.