Ichabod's Day

 So, we amble into the final "Being Retired" phase. If you've been following my previous blogs you will have shared with me my path from decision making, leaving work and then transitioning through feeling retired to the stage I think I may be in now - which is Being retired. It's been a few weeks now - no idea how many without looking - one symptom of being retired I'm thinking. To be honest, completely surprisingly, I have not missed work at all. I expected to have "flashbacks" of loose ends or seasonal tasks - "did I get verification for that assessment?" "have I set up the discussion board for the module?" "I must make an appointment with..." but  nothing - no waking at 3am with a sudden urge to make a note of something, no sense of dread that I may have forgotten to do something vital. Work is no longer providing a structure, stimulation or validation - I realise these must be coming from somewhere else now but I'm ...

I often refer to myself as an amateur archivist, a memory gatherer or story teller.  Wikipedia defines archivist as   "an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value". Being amateur my "realm" is a more personal collection. Mostly family documents over the generations and of course photographs.  Many wonder why I do this, I sometimes wonder myself and often explain that it is important to me to document and recreate  experiences through creating. I also feel as though I am compelled to document a level of family and social history for future generations........ and  I enjoy the process of curation itself,  telling a story and the feeling of closure that this brings knowing that a memory has been stored safely away (not really a control freak!!)  It is often said that,  at the end, all we have left are the memories ...

 You know how you can look forward to something so much that all your attention focuses on the "thing" that is going to happen ( a holiday, a new addition to the family, finally acquiring the book you've been searching for, retiring.....) that you forget/overlook/ lose focus on what comes next? Well, it feels a little like that at the moment. My previous post (linked here) using Eagers et al (2018) stages of transition left us at "ceasing work". A stage I was in at that time towards the end of August and now successfully transitioned with no major hiccups. A lovely, socially-distanced send off by colleagues - although there seemed to be a lot of adjectives such as "organised", "keeps us to task", "straight talking" - do you think they meant "bossy"?! Next stage is "Feeling Retired" described as the point in time when you consider yourself retired. I keep jokingly saying "I'm a pensioner" but I...

Inside Happisburgh lighthouse Whilst I have never been a subscriber of the “ what’s the worst that can happen" camp (possibly because I’ve lived with a catastrophiser for 30 years so know on a regular basis 🙄), I have come to realize that I _am_ a follower of the “ it can’t be that hard” brigade. This has seen me embark on any number of projects over time - most of which would never have been started had I known how hard the reality would be - not a bad thing perhaps? But certainly naive. There’s the time I decided that cutting hair can’t be that hard, upholstering a chair, designing an online masters programme, playing the accordion...... I could go on. Anyhow - marry that with an inherited approach of “it’ll do” ( thanks Dad) and there you have a recipe for not exactly disaster - but certainly for unexpected outcomes. So once again I embark on a new project with the same mix of naivete and pragmatism. Having been watching ( for watching read obsessed by) many YouTube channel...