So, for real, I think, I'm back

I’m back!  I’ve not been away, just been unable to create anything that I considered worthy of posting.  I think I have moved beyond that road block and am looking forward to writing and sharing on a somewhat regular basis.

When I was still working I was also posting often.  A number of my colleagues were my greatest fans and supporters.  My confidence was buoyed and my creativity inspired by their regular and immediate in person feedback and enthusiasm.

Once I retired I was left much on my own to keep me going.  And for me, that is when I can oh, so easily get caught up in a negative thinking cycle in my own head.  I have nothing of value to say.  No one is interested in what I am writing about.  Add to this some overwhelming stress and feelings of inadequacy due to major family situations, and, well, I simply became immobilized.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t sit and write, couldn’t sit and think.

This is not a new place, I have been here before.  And I have also rebounded before and, thank God, now.  

The summer I turned 40 was a remarkable time.  Within one week my brother J and my Mother died, my Mother on my 40^th birthday.  The following month a relationship I had been in/out for quite some time abruptly and decisively was ended, not by me.  And, as if that wasn’t enough, my apartment was robbed!  I mention this because the long term effect of these traumatic losses forced me to face and make peace with them and a childhood and adolescence of filled with hurts and devastations. 

I was so fortunate to have been able to work through the current losses and the long held pain with a brilliant psychiatrist.  The therapy was hard, painful, insightful and successful.  I was left with many “pearls of wisdom,” which I would be given, scrawled on a yellow post-it as I would be leaving a session. 

The one that finally resurfaced recently and got me “un-stuck” was “don’t compare your insides to other’s outsides”.

Having long ago learned that I am not unique, I know that so many of us do this.  And it can be so negative and crippling.  Like me, so many of us present to the world, our friends, colleagues, acquaintances the person we want to be.  And, like me, this is so often not that person who can live within us.  Usually I can maintain a fine balance here, but sometimes I forget.  When I am most vulnerable, low in confidence and self-esteem, struggling with depression I forget.  That’s when I see only my fragile and lacking inside and it comes up so short when I compared to the outside presences of the rest of world.  

I mention this here as I think many of us experience this.  As it is good for me to be reminded, well perhaps it will be good for some who may be reading this also.

Being full-time retired for less than a year, I am still figuring out how to spend my time and still struggling with keeping myself socially engaged and mentally stimulated when not going to work on every day.  I just have to remember that should not measure my retirement, experiencing it from the inside of me against that of others, viewed by me from the outside.  I suspect that the first year of retirement for many is a similar roller coaster of ups and downs while this whole new way of life is defined. I am loving retirement which is not to be confused with every day is an absolute joy.  I love the freedom to explore and do what I want.  And I look forward to sharing more of this process and my experiences here.