Pretending I'm Retired

  2004 Flashback It’s 2004 and the cicadas come. I’m a stay-at-home mom in Virginia with my husband Paul and two children. Jack is almost five and Katherine is three. I fill a scrapbook with pictures of our family—the doting grandparents, grinning cousins, and, of course, Uncle Bobby’s dog Bear. I think I will remember these preschool days so clearly. On this Saturday afternoon in May, the cicadas are a source of wonder. Bear is stretched out on the patio, and when a cicada lands close enough, he paws at it and eats it. Jack and Katherine pull empty shells off the tree bark, collecting them in a pile as Paul and I plant perennials. Katherine drops her finger to the dirt, guiding a cicada to crawl up her arm and Jack shouts excitedly when one alights on his shirt. In the evening, we sit on the patio, listening to the insects’ high-pitched songs as Uncle Bobby gives Jack and Katherine wheelbarrow rides. For a few weeks, the vibrating tymbals of the cicadas overtake the sounds o...

  Shhh, hear that whirring sound? It’s not the cicadas…it’s the sound of the spinning blades of helicopter parents as we begin to worry about our babies graduating from college: How will they find those perfect first jobs during a pandemic? It’s going to be okay, I promise. My son is graduating from college, and he just landed his first job. After four years of studying, he will collect his business degree, move back home, and caddy at a local golf course. I could not be prouder. It’s spring—graduation season—the time when stories circulate of those college graduates landing great jobs with big salaries. Making 70K as an accountant for a Fortune 500 company is a sweet deal if you are passionate about crunching numbers. But what about new graduates who aren’t yet sure what they want to do? For many, the best way to pair skills and interests with a career isn’t as clear cut. How important is that first job after graduation? It’s important, but maybe not for the reasons you thin...

I'm skipping around the house singing right now, "My mom is coming over! It's time for a closet assessment!" There are two types of people in this world: those who think cleaning out closets is a chore, and those who consider this project one of life's most satisfying events. Mom and I are in the latter camp. We’ve developed an unconventional tradition of Mother-Daughter bonding time reviewing my clothing collection. This spring, Mom’s visit has special significance. Now fully vaccinated, she is coming over for the first time in over a year.  What are some traditions you’ve missed? Many of us felt a deep social loss when the pandemic caused stress on our relationships. As restrictions begin to lift, we are nostalgic for familiar routines. “When it comes to rethinking traditions,” says Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at George Mason University, “we have a bias to stick with the status quo.” Some traditions are born out of necessity. I live in an old...

When I left school on Thursday, March 12, 2020, I had no idea it would be the last normal day. While I sensed an extended spring break was coming, I thought I’d have Friday to wrap things up and collect my missing library books. I awoke on Friday the 13 th to the news that our school system had abruptly announced an immediate closing, but the seriousness of the situation still hadn’t hit me. The coronavirus seemed surreal and somehow far away. We’re not in China. We’re not in Italy. We haven’t been on an International Cruise. I spent the afternoon biking with friends to a brewery to take advantage of the unseasonably warm and unexpected day off. It wasn’t until I went to the grocery store later that day and saw the aisles of empty shelves that it began to sink in. As I looked over random items that were left, I felt a pit in my stomach. We’re not going to starve, I thought, adding split pea soup and rosemary flavored couscous to the cart. Even then, the scope of the pandemic was u...

 “I’m not from Alabama.” Or should I say “these parts.” I don’t say that, because those words don’t roll off my tongue. The kids are looking at me with confused blinking stares. I’ve made another cultural blunder and I didn’t even know it. It’s a beautiful fall day in 1993 and we’re ambling up the side of a mountain laurel trail when one asks, “Miss Allison, what’s your favorite football team?” My answer gets confused looks. Because, as anyone from Alabama knows, there are only two choices and one right answer. And I’ll give you a hint. It’s not the professional football team that won the Super Bowl in ’92. I’m from a Maryland suburb. I’m from The Washington Post and The Washington Nationals. Moving from the DC area to a rural area of Northeast Alabama, I’d traded our Nation’s Capital for the Sock Capital of the World. (Think I’m kidding? Look up Fort Payne.) And every day, it’s clear that I’m not from Alabama. I’ve never tasted okra. And I’ve never seen so many stars at ...

  I feel more friendly when I am writing, nicer to people, much more generous, also wiser.                                                          --Toni Morrison When do you become a writer? Define yourself that way? Introduce yourself at cocktail parties, swirling a glass of cabernet as you breezily mention, "Oh, I'm a writer." Well, first of all, I’d have to attend cocktail parties, which I don’t. I'm a bit of an introvert and I don’t really like wearing mascara. And second, I have a "real job." I am a teacher, which is probably the occupation I’d share at said mythical cocktail party. Do you have to be paid to define yourself as a writer? Log a certain number of hours hunched over your morning pages or...

Do you ever play the "what if" game in your head, wondering how your life might be different if you had made different decisions in the past? I say different but I actually mean better. Because we don't ever seem to perseverate about good decisions, do we? I never think back and wonder what might have happened if I had dropped out of college and married the Domino's delivery driver who used to bring pizzas to campus. I do sometimes think back to regrets, or missed opportunities.  So does Nora Seed. the protagonist in Matt Haig's The Midnight Library . And when she decides that her life is no longer worth living, she wakes up in this library, a space between life and death, where each book in the seemingly infinite rows of shelves represent a life based on a decision Nora has made.  Life is full of decisions. "Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn lea...