My mom is 65 and retired just before Covid 19 came on, escaping that banker's life just in time to avoid dealing with all the protocols.
Later during the pandemic, I followed suit. I'm too young to say that I retired early, but I did leave my career behind in favor of dialing it back. (Thanks: remarriage. Thanks: privilege.)
I essentially pressed pause for all of 2022. Leaving the workforce was, for me, a crisis of conscience, and existential exercise of Who Am I Now?
I did know who I was then. And I didn't even know how to find out. I didn't know where to start.
I spent the better part of 2022 on the couch. I listened to all my favorite True Crime podcasts, played Tetris on my phone, and waited for my husband from nine to five every day, looking forward to that basement door opening - he was only downstairs all day, in his home office.
On Tuesdays, I would trek to the grocery and try to get it together enough to buy ingredients and cook a couple of times each week. (On the off days, we'd order Door Dash.) I would do laundry. Dishes. I'd take out of the trash. Most days, I'd try to get "Cleaned Up" enough not to embarrass or worry my 6th grade daughter when I picked her up after school.
Once a week, I went to my former therapist. (She was kind but would have been better as a 4th grade teacher.) She couldn't unravel me.
I was too unraveled already.
Calling it depression was. I guess, right. But I didn't feel depressed. I didn't feel anything. Looking back - what a time it could have been! The writing time, time to sit and read. Time to hit the gym, go to yoga, discover a new hobby, make new friends.
Instead: nothing.
Leaving my job wasn't easy. I was on the verge of an emotional nervous breakdown. I was in a constant state of crippling anxiety, to the point of paranoia.
I was undermedicated.
But - enough about me. This whole year, as I sat silent, like a statue frozen in time, my Mom is twenty minutes away, living it up.
I'm back at work now, and I finally went to visit her Homemakers Book Club yesterday, to present a little information about the Senior Care Industry.
Their book club was amazing. Amazing! There was flavored sparkling water, homemade oatmeal and chocolate bars. And only ONE of them had to read a book - each time they gather, one person does a review or "Report" of the book they've chosen to read. After a short presentation, the rest of the group gets the chance to borrow the book.
So, I took home snacks and a copy of The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan.
I WANT A BOOK CLUB LIKE THAT.
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