By Susan Govern
Last September I read a funny quote: “My husband just retired…please rescue me!”
At the time I laughed when I read it, and all I could think about was how I would not be like that wife. I was looking forward to my husband retiring from school bus driving at the end of the school year. Now the time has come – as of the end of school in May my husband is now a “free” man. Free to sleep in, free to only drive when and where he wants, free to do…whatever.
His first real Monday of no responsibilities was just this first Monday of June and he made a point of getting up early (not quite as early as for work though). He had plans – plans to get up and get moving. He was going to get things done by jumping into the day.
About two and a half hours after him, I awoke. Now Mondays for me have always been slow days – from the time I was in school, when I worked, and all the way to present day – I ease into the day’s activities. That’s just how I’m wired. So as I am standing in the kitchen getting my coffee ready (a very important part of any day but especially Mondays) he starts telling me about his morning. The conversation went something like this:
ME: You went for a walk already?
Hubby: Yeah, and did my back exercises too. Then I took the sheets you were going to wash and they are already in the dryer.
ME: Oh…oh…ok. Thanks.
(Getting coffee and starting on making my breakfast as hubby disappears downstairs only to have him return a couple minutes later with cleaning supplies and vacuum sweeper.)
Hubby: Now I’m going to start on the hallway bathroom, then I’ll do our bathroom and run the vacuum. I’ll do all the rooms, and also vacuum the kitchen. Oh and I am thinking about doing something about the fence rail that was damaged by that fallen tree in last fall’s storm.
ME: (Staring at him blankly as my mind slowly processes this.) Ummm, you do realize you don’t have to do everything your first day of retirement, you’ve got years of time ahead of you?!
And a moment later he was gone, cleaning supplies in hand he headed down the hallway to start on the bathroom cleaning.
I can understand some of his desire to get going on chores – our daughter was due in the next day from Arizona for a two-week visit and we have a family cook-out planned for the weekend so she can have a chance to visit with family. I knew there were things to get done – and I had every intention of doing them, I’m just slower to get myself into gear, but once I do, I’ll work till I finish what I planned to accomplish is complete.
As I sipped my coffee and ate my breakfast in our patio room, I could hear the vacuum sweeper in the background. I thought about how it may be from now on. A while ago I wrote about me being a night person and hubby being a morning person – that also explains why I like to ease into the day, and he gets right at it. All those times I looked ahead to his retirement I never realized we could be in for some real adjusting.
When we travel, it’s early to bed and early to rise and I have no problem. I embrace the start of each new day as the beginning of a wonderful adventure. I am actually the first one up then – usually rising around 5:00 a.m. to shower and be dressed so we can go to breakfast by 6:00 or 6:30 a.m.
At home – with pretty much the same routines to look forward to – I have yet to get up at an “unearthly” hour just for the heck of it. Tim likes sunrises – and I prefer sunsets.
Sitting with my coffee cup in hand that Monday morning I had an epiphany of sorts – hubby’s retirement was going to take some readjusting of attitude – some reworking of habits – some willingness to change so we don’t end up clashing. Yep…somehow I was going to have to put in some overtime to see to it that hubby changes and learns what a pleasure it is to ease into the day.
Maybe I could start by hiding his alarm clock and getting black-out curtains for the bedroom window – after all, a little extra hour, or two or three of sleep in the morning never killed anyone.
