19 Comments
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Gosolo gofar's avatar

I am retiring in 9 weeks and three days! I am already sorting my clothes. I am going to keep a couple favorite outfits, for some unknown occasion where they are appropriate, but I have been dreaming for years about the adventures of no longer having to be “professional me”. My plan, I am going to become a spring hippie! I will wear all the clothes I never wore as a “responsible adult “ why, because I can!!!😅🤣😅

Angela's avatar

Well…Gooood morning! Man o man….your Cupid’s arrow sure hit my target this morning. Wiping tears (they feel good), —so much wise goodness in these words! Thank you for staying in your pj’s—served us all so well! 🤗

Susan Kamm-Huey's avatar

Oh my goodness, well said! Some time in my 50s, as I was removing my eye makeup, I realized I hadn’t seen a single person since applying it that morning. Including my husband. I stopped that daily ritual and freed up time and money. At first, looking in the mirror was depressing but now it’s just my 65 year old face. Thank you for articulating my feelings so well!

Anitra Carol Smith's avatar

wonderful. I love the story of Mark Twain that one day he realized there was really no reason to get fully dressed and sit at his writing desk to write. After that he wrote sitting up in bed in his pajamas. Creative thinker like you.

Anitra Carol Smith's avatar

PS my very first set of acrylics for painting is arriving any day now. A birthday gift from my son. Oh my God I can't wait. I don't know the first thing about how to paint… I only know I have this desire to do it. And I'm going to start with my current fave color Combination: Cantaloupeorange and Honeydew green.. So fresh and beautiful.

Monica Hebert's avatar

OH I am so tickled for you! just put out a cup of water, dip your brush in the water, then let swirl in one of those colors and just FEEL the glory of the color on your brush gliding on the canvas,

Anitra Carol Smith's avatar

feel the glory of the color on my brush… Thank you. I'm getting an inkling about how to connect to my painting

Anitra Carol Smith's avatar

thank you for this bit of guidance because I am totally clueless about how to paint. I just have the desire and it has kept coming up over and over to the point that I knew I had to do it. Like I have time for this? I am already writing my memoir, learning to play the ukulele, taking singing lessons from a fantastic teacher. But who said we need to be sensible

Anitra Carol Smith's avatar

have I mentioned that my mother was a painter? And dancer and singer? And musician?

Nice Shindo's avatar

I loved the listening option! Besides that, you are describing the lives of many of us here, I think, mine for sure.

Sherry Klein's avatar

Amen.

Molly's avatar

Beautiful! Such astute observations that are so true. I am slowly sliding into a life where I do what I want… and nothing else.🌺

Deb Konrad's avatar

I really feel this, thanks for a very thought provoking post😘❤️

Wendy's avatar

!!! This! So much wisdom.

I feel it. This is where im heading.. to find my own rhythm.

Im not a wordsmith, but you sure are, thank you Monica for your passion and commitment.

Kathy-Musings From the Art Den's avatar

I can’t believe you wrote by life!

I have embraced wearing my PJs ALL DAY on some days and often not leaving the comfy of my apartment for days at a time.

If I’m not feeling it, I often allow myself to take a reading day.

I’ve actually gotten off SM as I felt myself far too dependent on it. I’ve put up 3 hours on either side of my sleep time where there are no red boxes with numbers that ‘must be attended to’. It has helped me reclaim myself.

I’m a relatively solitary person, so I can go days without seeing anyone but my husband and we often sit together in silence. But I love to chat online and to FaceTime with framily.

I walk when I feel like it, stretch most days.

I might actually try napping, which is one of my last bugaboos. Maybe I’m not meant to, as I haven’t really napped since I was a child, or a twenty-something young woman with an early start job, but who didn’t want to be stopped from going out and shaking her tail feathers. But maybe I’m ready to experiment with what napping is at 65 in a few months.

Ah, then there’s creating… my Self’s resonance to joy.

I like this life.

Denise Berkhalter's avatar

Allow the butterfly 🦋 to emerge when she’s good and darn ready ❤️

Eva May Baker's avatar

This really made me think. I’m going to see how many things I do today because of some kind of external pressure. Who would I be if no one was watching? Why can’t I be that person anyway? Much food for thought.

Barbara Snow's avatar

Well, done, sweet MoniRose. Here are some excellent “labels“ for your new ways of being. Reflection, a combination of thinking and praying and sensing into the unknown. Expanding your beingness, your consciousness. Presence, when you activate all of your senses and knowing this within the container of your form. That brings you more powerfully into the moment. Presence is a superpower. You are doing great.