Restore

For the past two weeks, I’ve been thinking about the word I want to focus on for the coming year.  The word that best captures what I want to accomplish this year is “restore.”

When I retired in November, I was exhausted.  I am regaining my energy, my good-humor, and who I am at my core.  But, it’s going to take a year of rest to get all the way there.

The best analogy I can make is to a race horse who has finished its racing career and is going to be retrained as a pleasure or competitive horse in another discipline.  The first thing that is done with the horse is putting them out in a big green pasture for six months (or more) and letting them just “be a horse.”  I have seen the magic of this with both Tex and Lucy.  Neither are race horses but both came here tightly wound.  Lucy came from a rigorous training life in show barns and Tex from competitive rodeo where he suffered some trauma.

The past six years have been a blur.  For the first four years after we moved here, I worked for a large, multi-State company.  I had come from a small, community system where I had strong connections and market knowledge.  It was a very steep learning curve for me, learning a new market and a new company, but I liked my co-workers and I liked learning.  Ultimately, though, I realized that working in a corporate silo wasn’t a good fit and I left to work at a small, regional HealthPlan that provides healthcare to the poor.  It was a much better place for me.  But, the department I was hired to run was a mess.  Initially, I was full of energy and ideas — I could see the problems and I knew how to fix them.  I was focused on making my team rock stars and our department a well-oiled machine.  But, there were far more problems than I realized.  For everything I fixed, five more broken systems would be revealed.  It was exhausting.  I worked long hours and had a very long commute (two hours each way).  Eventually, I just couldn’t do it anymore.  One day, as I walked past my assistant’s desk, she said, “Are you okay?”
“Why?” I asked
“Because I’ve never seen you look so defeated.”

I thought, She’s right.  That is exactly how I feel.  Defeated. 

So, I retired.  A bit earlier than in the original plan.  But I was tired of being tired; I couldn’t focus; I couldn’t retain information; I was forgetting things; and I was snapping at my husband.  I didn’t do anything at home except eat and sleep.  Enough of that noise.

Now, I wake with the sun and not with an alarm.  I cook and garden and read books.  I play with Sage.  I hug Lucy and hang out with Tex.  And if I don’t feel like doing anything productive, I don’t.  I’m learning how to smile and laugh again, and I’m enjoying the company of friends and family.  I loved Christmas.  Decorating and baking and shopping didn’t feel like pressure; it was thoughtfully done, with love and intent.  I reveled in the time with my kids and my dad.  I relaxed into the moments.

Restore.  That’s the goal.  Restore myself to me.  Restore my happy core and nurture it.