Pretending I'm Retired

A letter to myself written on my 51 st birthday, December 29, 2021 Dear Allison, Happy birthday! Whatever else happens in life, you know you’ve made it to fifty-one amazing, glorious years.  While challenges in 2021 brought heaviness, you were proactive and resilient in seeking out and finding the good. C all it selective memory, but the remembrances are more positive than not. You’ve had a good year and  many highlights beyond your first colorectal screening… Granddaddy turned ninety and we are thankful he is still strong in mind, body, and spirit Lots of cooking! I worked through decades of recipes torn from magazines, including the (first annual?) Sweet Sixteen baking tournament for the neighborhood. Jack’s room was officially turned into my office—partly because I was teaching virtually and partly to solidify my empty nester status. Jack graduated from Randolph-Macon College—whoop, whoop!—and promptly moved back home, wiping away my empty nester status. He is caddying...

It was Saturday afternoon, and I was languishing on the couch in my pajamas wrapped in a blanket of self-pity. This was not on my list of things to do today. I was supposed to be planning weekly menus and changing the laundry loads. I was supposed to be addressing Christmas cards and wrapping a few gifts. I was supposed to be productive. And now, we were invited to a friend’s house for dinner. I was supposed to be showering, drying my hair, and putting on lipstick. I was supposed to feel festive. Instead, I was wallowing in my own rabbit hole of discontent, trying to convince myself to go out. There are numerous benefits of social connections on our mental health, including lower rates of anxiety and depression. But to reap those benefits, I’ve got to get up off this couch. One of the tricky things about social situations is that first greeting. There’s the taking of the coat, the taking of the drink order, and then it comes: “How are you?” “Well,” I wanted to say, ...