@judianne I understand totally about the last two years being ruined. On February 20, 2020 I retired after 32 years of working for our city school department.
I so looked forward to travelling, taking care of projects in
my house, having lunch with friends, spending time with my daughters and grandchildren, maybe some day trips with my husband and visiting some of our great museums.
In less than a month, everything shut down. For more than a year, I was glued to the TV news and CNN. I wanted to know everything that was going on with covid. On paper I kept daily count and tracked the numbers of cases and deaths in each state. I was filled with anxiety and got very depressed. I hardly
ever got dressed. I still don't get dressed every day and hardly leave the house, except for Dr. appointments, prescription pick ups and maybe about once a month, I'll venture out to the supermarket.
This is not what I imagined my retirement to be. It is so
disappointing. Even though we speak on the phone often, my
children and I don't visit in person. I've missed going to grand
children's and great grand children's birthday parties and our
large family gatherings at Christmas.
We miss our trips to Bermuda. We went there often, since
it is only a 1 1/2 hours flight from us. The last trip we had was
a Viking Danube River Cruise in August 2019. We have not even driven up to Maine as we did almost every summer.
When things were better last summer, did go to local restaurants a few times. Hopefully, now that Covid numbers
are going down, we will venture out this spring and summer.
With all that's going on in Europe, I doubt that we will be going there again. We travelled to Italy in 2006 and I have wanted to return since then. My husband is almost 84 and we
both have issues with walking now. With declining health, long flights are probably something not in our future.
How wonderful that you had a few years to enjoy your
retirement. We can't get back our two lost years, but hopefully
things will get better this spring and summer.
In the meantime, I'll spend much of my time reading, which I have always loved to do. I've finish 8 books since Christmas and I need to get some more. I'm trying not to watch
what is happening in Eastern Europe, but at the same time I care and want to know.
We can just pray for better days.
Edited to include: The joys of not working are not having to
get up early in the morning, not to endure the
stress of driving in the morning traffic, not
having to put up with stress and nonsense of
the workplace in 2022.
I try to see the bright side and the glass half full.
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