MY NEW OASIS

 MY NEW OASIS

My road to retirement began with such promise and enthusiasm but how quickly that all changed.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed me back … not back from the drawing board, but just back during a scary seemingly endless global storm of worry, shock, uncertainty and unknowns. 

For me it was like wondering what the cavemen would do to move themselves forward. I put myself into a mindset of back to basics and basics only, staying dependent on myself, my wit, my stamina, my resilience, my resolve to eventually slowly move forward again. The cavemen worked it out and so can I, I’d say to myself.

So here we are into year 2 of the pandemic and experiencing a third wave — finally it seems we are able to feel much closer to that light at the end of a long dark tunnel. The strength in my independence and the post adolescent path I chose, have saved me in a lot of ways — they’ve certainly strengthened my character, exercised my constructive critical thinking and out of the box analysis,  and helped me flesh out my creative writing projects like never before!  In Cribbage terms, I am a pegger, in that I move forward slowly during difficult times and work towards big moves forward.  In life terms, my personality is structured sequential and that’s much like being a pegger too.

I have discovered that I have a very low threshold of tolerance when it comes to hearing undereducated and uninformed people use phrases like ‘we should have’ or ‘we could have’, in their diatribes about how best to solve a major paranormal medical phenomenon that has major paranormal health, economic and social implications for individuals, groups, institutions, businesses all over the world today, tomorrow and for generations ahead of us. Why are people like that?  I feel much more comfortable obeying the guidelines from professional medical research specialists than tagging along with armchair geniuses.

Being independent has been a blessing because I can mute the negatives more easily. I can vent my anger in people’s contrarian attitudes by talking to myself while walking, cycling, swimming or just sitting in my quiet home, or through my passion for creative writing. I can stay away from germs more easily. The best thing of all is that I can focus on future, post-pandemic retirement plans, freely building on what they were to be and turning them into so much more, embracing family and actual friends along the way. 

Yesterday is gone, yes.  Our lives will never be the way they once were and realizing that now is my focus. 

As a recent retiree, what’s ahead for me IS my new Oasis, a refreshing fresh new start, and the possibilities are almost endless — once we get passed this last hurdle.