This is me, finding my way through the first year of retirement! 
Count down to Retirement
March 2019.
Today, while sitting in my car in traffic at a long red light, I find myself counting down time. Fourteen more work days, one day till my 60th Birthday, one month till our trip to Europe.
I work in a Mental Health setting and know all about mindfulness, living in the moment, appreciating my precious life, but all of these teachings are not coming to mind right now. After forty years of working Monday to Friday, every year carefully metering out each annual vacation day to gain maximum time, this future of infinite vacation looms large. No longer a faint speck far out on the horizon to be glanced at wistfully on occasion, it’s right here, blocking my vision of the here and now. And so I will pull myself back to mindfulness and reflect on who I am, who and what do I surround myself with, what am I grateful for.
I am a Canadian woman, born on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. I was raised in the military community, a life of moving across the Country from base to base where ever my father was posted. My mother’s family are Mennonite, pacifists firmly planted in the small towns and farms on the prairies; I know, strange bedfellows.
There were four constants in those inconsistent years. Family, pets, books and figure skating. No matter where we landed these four anchors came too, my bricks and mortar. Once grown, I returned to Vancouver Island, the ocean tide pulling me back to the only place that I truly felt I belonged. Here I spent the next forty plus years. Married for thirty years, raising two children, divorcing, eventually finding new happiness, all the while working the 9-5 grind. That’s a forty year story in a very small “nutshell”.
And now, here I am, on the cusp of my 60th year. While much of life has and will shift, I find that I am still grateful for the same things, ok not figure skating so much anymore.
Family, continually shrinking with losses and stretching with additions.
Books, always, always reading and now somewhat tentatively, I include my own writing.
Dogs – an emotional lifeline through it all.
I am grateful to my work which has allowed me to live a secure life but I will not mourn its end. My relationship with work is not like some who are lucky to have a passion that pays. I will continue though to explore, now with the luxury of time my passions for those key life anchors and perhaps will discover some new ones if I am fortunate enough to remain on the planet for awhile longer.
I have created a second word press site Kimberly Chester Writer & Author for writing. Find me at Kimberly Chester, Writer & Author – WordPress.com
Retirement Rocks 