Some say you should never throw away anything you ever wrote. I’ve taken a different path. Over the years and many moves, I’ve whittled down my stockpile of journals and published writing to one large tub. I periodically go through it and purge stuff I no longer want to keep.
I’ve purchased many lovely notebooks, but I as a diarist, I was inconsistent at best. Most notebooks had a few pages of scribbling about my sad woes and then many blank pages. After skimming through the entries and seeing nothing of consequence, I ripped those pages out for the recycling bin but saved the notebooks.
While I don’t journal, I do keep a notebook on my desk for working projects, so I shouldn’t need to buy anymore notebooks ever.
One thing I did notice and kept was a poem about Christmas I wrote in my late teens. Apparently, I’ve hated Christmas for a long time. In a way, that makes me feel better. It’s not like I made it up in mid-life. I was born this way.
I found a few paragraphs of a short story. I tried to write fiction years ago and quit, coming to perhaps a false realization that I don’t have it in me. Maybe it’s the quarantine talking, but I saw some potential. Not world-class literature, for sure, but I kind of want to know the back story and what happens next.
The bahnhof was cold, as they usually are, and damp, as I knew it would be. I could already feel the fever coming on, but we had a couple of hours to kill before the train left. I needed a drink, and I needed a book and Richard had already decided to be difficult.
Why didn’t we rent a car and drive, he wanted to know. But of course, he knew. It was the train. I needed to be on that train. There was no other option.
I left Richard with the bags and walked to the international store. I bought a cheap porno book for 12 marks and a murder mystery, both in English. Then I found a bar and settled in. It was going to be a long night.
Literary poetry has always sort of baffled me. But I did like writing straightforward poems that rhymed. Interestingly, I found my own little masterpiece about hating work – dated 1974! I had barely started working and was already sick of it. I kept that one, too.
The poem itself is pretty awful, so I’ll spare you that. But there I was at 19, wishing I could just quit worrying about making a living and enjoying life without goals or aims. I’m giving myself props for hanging in there.
It took 40 years, but I kind of achieved my dream. No big plans. My full-time job is to take care of myself, be kind to others and enjoy life’s simple pleasures. I golf, walk, swim laps, cook, read, write, watch TV, listen to music, take care of the house, grow cannabis and otherwise goof off. While I’m not the sort to show up at a protest march, another focus is to support progressive causes.
Everyone’s vision of retirement is different. Mine has certainly evolved, even from when I started this blog two-plus years ago. As I told a friend, I might find goals within the categories of things I like to do, but I’m not out to reinvent myself or my life. I’m happy just being.
An interesting book for those who are contemplating how happiness is relevant in a world gone mad is Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Viktor E. Frankl.
Just published for the first time in English, the author was a Holocaust survivor who lectured on the importance of embracing life even in the face of adversity. It’s not a breezy read, but there are some genuine nuggets.
Funny you write this today. I’m in the yard, laying bricks in the dirt, and in the quiet alone I am contemplating my life. The pandemic has brought me back to my childhood, fat kid, alone, playing in the dirt on my hands and knees. If only I had a Tonka truck.
I was always dirty, which is my new state. My mother tried to shame me by getting me a Peanuts Pig Pen sweatshirt that said “I’m a dust magnet”. It didn’t work and I wore it all the time.
The quiet does evoke memories. While not all memories are happy, I think processing them is a good thing. Except now I feel bad now for telling Dale he’s like Pig Pen with a big cloud of crumbs and salt following him wherever he goes. It hasn’t worked with him, either.
I’m happy just being too. So many people have asked me what I am going to “do” or “be” in retirement, and the answer is always the same: whatever makes me happy. I’ve spent the bulk of my life so far doing and being for others. Now it’s my turn, for me.
People tell me I will get bored, and that’s fine if it happens. But I doubt it will.
Deb
Yes to whatever makes you happy! It’s amazing what people will say. All those who said I would regret not having kids. Um, no regrets. I’d be bored without a job. I’m in my third year of retirement, and I’m not bored yet. Can’t wait to hear about your move.
You hate Christmas? Please elaborate.
I do like the food, holiday baking, etc. But I have no connection to Christmas spiritually, and we never had big family events, so there’s another connection I don’t have. All in all, it’s a just more than I want to bother with. I always say I’d like to go straight from Thanksgiving to New Year’s.
“masterpiece about hating work – dated 1974!” Ha! Think it took me a few more years 🙂
The same for me on Christmas. As a kid, loved it, got toys! Beyond that it just seemed to get way too commercialized and complex.
Yes, I was all about the toys, but by high school graduation, I was pretty much over it.
I’m having a nice run of days where I am generally feeling happy.. content, not pressured, not needing to be anywhere but HERE in the present moment and it feels good. Still missing some friendship get togethers but am enjoying the ZOom meetups my book club and my art group organize weekly. This morning my husband and I took an hour long walk around the lakes at our local park.I’m home preparing to enjoy what I call a “resort day” at home. I put on the waterfall, made a pot of coffee, prepared my bowl of berries and cottage cheese, and am blissfully ready to sit outside and dig into a few chapters of a novel I have on my cloud library.I’m planning to watercolor later, and I have a refrig with some homemade soup and some leftover rigatony and meatballs,so no need to spend time in the kitchen today. It’s kinda how we vacation in Bucerias, Mexico, except no uncomfortable plane ride and I have to make my own coffee. I will read the book you recommended. I am grateful for days like this when I have found the calm center .
That sounds like a lovely day! I had fresh boysenberries with my yogurt today, and it was delicious! I’ll have to try them with cottage cheese. I haven’t eaten cottage cheese in years, but I used to love it. I hear it’s making a comeback.