Start where you are and change the ending........

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'm not too sure I actually believe that yet - technically I am but I am not an old age pensioner yet and that seems an important distinction to be making for me at the moment. I have changed most of my status updates to retired - although facebook already changed me to "former senior lecturer" - how did it know - has it been reading my posts? I thought that was a bit presumptuous.

It's been a week so far and possibly too early to tell how this stage is going. When asked I say that it feels as though I'm on leave but without that dread of what you might be going back to. I have started to create some kind of structure to my day - but this may be transient. I get up when I feel ready to - that might be 5am or 12 noon or somewhere in between. Most days this week I've had something concrete in my diary such as a hospital appointment, changing details on official things, sorting out admin and filing of home office stuff or I have set myself a goal - for example, finally taking the bags of "stuff" to donate to the charity shop. Word of warning (or it may just be me!)... if you've had those donations hanging around for ages due to lockdown and quarantine issues for shops - these have been around since about February in various places in the house/shed - DO NOT open them again to check just before you take them to donate. I ended up taking out various items of clothing as though they were long lost friends and they are now back in the already overstuffed wardrobe.

The other thing that has been keeping me both busy and entertained is the development of my YouTube channel (linked here )and vlogging - not dogging as my brother-in-law thought I said when we did our weekly family skype!! Those of you who are facebook/instagram friends will be familiar with what I have been trying to do. I wanted to create a more "instant" approach to sit alongside this blog. I really enjoy writing and the time I can take to present what I want to say in a blog but vlogging seems more instant and more interactive to me as a viewer of many different genres, so I have decided to have a go. I am still finding my "voice" as in what makes it _me_ and I have been filming and researching quite a bit this week. I am really enjoying this aspect - although one of the things I had failed to consider in my retirement is that I no longer have access to publisher's sites and resources - I'm glad I printed out the Eagers et al article so I still have that as a reference to be able to complete the cycle of blogs. I am beginning to feel as though I can begin to weave disparate parts of me back together - so my skills in educating, using technology and research can be joined with my love of folklore, my interest in all things supernatural, my music, my storytelling etc. I hope it all works out - but I know I will have fun trying even if it doesn't .

So, mostly I have been busy, relaxed, productive and engaging in those things that I want to, have to and need to do -with a current emphasis on want to do - things that hold positive meaning for me and have integrity with my values - what we in the trade would call occupationally balanced. Why then, yesterday, did I suddenly become quite tearful? I think it may have something to do with identity. Not exactly a crisis of identity - but unpicking it a little this is what I think is happening:

Unfortunately I was never destined to be a parent and this means that I have perhaps been a perpetual daughter. I know without any shadow of doubt that my parents have _always_ been proud of me and of the things that I have achieved so maybe I wonder now how I will know what the benchmark is - what is the measure of "achievement" in retirement? My parents as role models in this are no longer an option, my Mum passed away only a few years after retiring and my Dad did not retire until he was in his late 70s/early 80s and now that he has dementia I am no longer able to create new memories with him. I guess I'm saying that perhaps for the first time in my life I have no external focus for my intrinsic need to do well/achieve/impress. That feels very unsettling and I'm sure once I am more familiar with this it will be rather freeing too, but for now it feels like a loss/a bereavement of ....what?....I'm not too sure.