I retired from my career a few months ago and have been relishing the time since, welcoming the opportunity to focus on avocations, hobbies, loves. In other words - I've REALLY been enjoying myself! Imagine my surprise then, to read these definitions of the term retirement: "ebb, evacuation, fallback, flight, pullback, pullout, withdrawal, abandonment, abolishing, abolition, abrogation, annulment, canceling, deletion, dissolution, dissolving, elimination, invalidating, invalidation, nullification" and many similar terms/concepts to define this stage of my life. I was appalled (alarmed, amazed, astounded, daunted, disconcerted, disheartened, dismayed), to realize that this time I had been anticipating with such joy was viewed so negatively, at least in the current lexicon of that concept. So I began looking for terms that in my mind reflect more accurately this particular time in my life. To my delight, I discovered that the term "advent" - in my mind heretofore related to Christmas - so accurately defined how I interpreted this phase of my life, namely: "beginning or arrival of something anticipated"; "appearance, approach, arrival, entrance, approach, arrival, onset..." AHA! I am not at the end of my life, but at the beginning of a new phase of my life! YES!
So this blog is my tale; my reflections on this journey, the advent of this phase of my life. I'm loving it, and I hope my meager comments and thoughts give others encouragement to embrace and celebrate this chapter of their lives rather than apologizing or making excuses for it.
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