Retirement?

My mom lists her "occupation" on Facebook as "Happily Retired"! I believe she is representing her occupation accurately. She worked harder than one should have to for many years and since she decided to retire she has never looked back. I am not sure I can say the same. 

Some people, like my husband, start looking toward and planning for their retirement from the start of their career. I think individuals whose professions offer a guaranteed percentage of their wages after X number of years are conditioned to keep their eye on that defined prize, counting the days until they are FREE! 

For me that was not the case. My career path has been winding and varied, with much of it spent as an entrepreneur. As a creative marketing and design professional I always made enough to get by – whether drumming up my own business or freelancing/contracting for others, but didn't often save and certainly didn't have a 401k match or pension plan adding up. I finally realized I'd better have more of a plan in place somewhere in my late 30's, early 40's.

After marrying my husband and having "our" retirement become more of a topic, we loosely decided I'd retire about one year after he did, which would have been about September of 2020. Instead of that being the way things went down, I found myself unemployed as of July 2019, with severance to carry me through November 2019, just before everyone else's employment changed or halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Here I am, almost a year later, in this weird, limbo, unemployed state that I can't seem to call "Happily Retired". I've been forced to look at how much of my feeling of self worth came from my job; from earning money and getting praise for a job well done. I like to have objectives laid out before me and a plan to reach them. I like to finish things so I can check that box. Or so I thought! 

I don't feel like I checked the retirement box. I feel like I was pushed out the door, definitely NOT on my own terms. Nothing like how my husband left his job after 30+ years with fanfare and celebration.

I'm looking for what's next for me and I want it to be something I cannot WAIT to work on every day. And I want it to make a positive impact on a soul level for as many people as possible — to offer insight, peace, light, and inspiration to a world that is weary of conflict, polarization, separation and uncertainty. Could you use any of that?

Then I thought...What if I Yoga? 

And there you have it.

Dream

D is for Dream. Today I'm going to try writing straight through stream of consciousness on everything I think, feel, believe about dreams. 

Dreams that happen when we are asleep in bed at night are usually something people barely remember if at all. I remember most every detail of many of mine. They are in full color, have smells, light, shadows, people, animals, places, emotions. I feel like I actually experience them. Sometimes I'm me, sometimes I'm watching me be pretty much me. Sometimes while dreaming, I realize I'm repeating a dream I've already had. When that happens, I get the feeling I remember what and how things happened the last time and I think to change them for a better outcome this time around and I change the experience. 

I usually bore people to tears recounting my varied, detailed dream experiences. A few of my closest friends get me on this front and find it fascinating, remarkable even. I have one friend who can always break them down for what they might mean in my waking life. 

So, what about dreams we have in our waking life? Like of taking a fabulous vacation, finding a true love, graduating from college, beating cancer, making a big difference in the world, winning the lottery, having children and grandchildren, learning to speak another language...what makes us dream those dreams and reach for them? First through our subconscious, we feel a pull to certain places, things, people; a little urge that might seem like a passing fancy. Then maybe our consciousness gets a little clearer on it and we investigate a little. Can we really have, be, or do that? So we decide mentally, "Yes!" and then with our words and actions, we bring these dreams to fruition. Or not. But the point is, most of us have had a dream we ourselves made come true by our own volition. So at that point, this life becomes  a dream – you living what once was just a notion.

I think it might even go a step further. What if we (humanity) are living representations of a bigger dream? Like actors on a stage, playing roles, saying lines, gaining experiences, interacting with the rest of the cast. And this is a HUGE play! None of it any more "real" than the ones we conjure in our sleep. We think we feel pain and pleasure, ups and downs, fears and bravery, connection or rejection...the list of dualities goes on. And we react to all of it as if it were true; a part of ourselves, a requirement of this life. 

Well, what if one day you woke up from this whole life and realized none of it had been real? Just like after a sleeping dream. What if sense pleasures were imagined as good, and trials imagined as evil, when actually the opposite was true? That sense pleasures had tricked and deluded you, while trials caused you to seek some deeper meaning and ultimately taught you what you actually knew all along, but forgot!

What if you woke up from the dream of this life to a beautiful and all encompassing light and the experience of complete peace and joy beyond description? No ego, no senses, no thoughts, no words, just being – where everything and nothing were the same because duality had ceased to exist. And along with every other verity, you knew you had always been a soul, perfect in every way, created in the image of the Divine. 

Maybe when my Dream's dream is done, she will lift me on her lap and I will finally awaken for good from this dream called life!

And there you have it!

Communication

C is for Communication, the word of the day. My first communication attempt today seemed to have failed miserably, but turned out to spark some much better attempts later in the day. 

I had an unpleasant exchange with my love and future husband just before going in to the office this morning. We have been having a tough time of late in the communication department as we transition to togetherness and partnership living under one roof. After being separate and set in our  independent ways, we're having to learn the art of communication and compromise. 

So, when I got off the phone with him and walked into work, I have to admit I was fighting tears. They were tears of frustration and fear. I said I'd find a pocket for my feelings and put them there out of mind so I could work and I actually did just that. I decided to channel my sidelined frustration into concentration. I was a little surprised that I got so much accomplished.

Just as I was feeling great about my contribution for the day, a co-worker and I touched base via the chat system on our desktops. I began to relay all the progress I'd made on our shared project. She started to point out all the ways she perceived I had misstepped, not acknowledging my nearly complete to do list (or the fact that most things on it were supposed to have been on hers). Soon I found myself on the defensive and ready to spit textual daggers her way for insinuating that I was a dullard. Instead, I did what I had wished my fiancé had done earlier. I decided to hear (read) her out, validate her concern clearly, then wait to see if she had more to say before calmly suggesting we had likely gone the way of misunderstanding and frustration due to the inept venue for communication that is an instant message box! I reminded her we are on the same side and should strive to support and uplift one another when the going gets tough rather than accuse and belittle. She agreed, and to top it off, called to apologize for her frustration and having taken it out on me!

I shared this with my love when I got home and we both acknowledged where we'd gone wrong earlier and made an agreement to redouble our efforts to communicate more effectively (and compassionately) moving forward. It felt like I'd just discovered something key to my happiness. And that is that when fear or ego take over, all good sense goes out the window and humans revert to reaction, anger and defense mechanisms that have never worked and never will. But it wasn't a discovery, it was more of what I have coined a repiphany. 

I'll have to elaborate on that one when I get to R!

And there you have it!

Picking Up Where I Left Off

B

I'm back to my charge. The ABC's of blogging. I started something I really want to finish. I did "A" some time back and now I am going to write every day for the next 25 days, until I finish the alphabet. They say the hardest thing about writing is just doing it. We'll see. 

Today, B is for battle. The battle that we are programmed from birth to fight. The infamous battle between good and evil.  

So what is good and what is evil? Happiness, pleasure, affection, success, love. Those are all good, right? Sorrow, pain, rejection, failure, hatred could be construed as evil. Well, if we get our definitions from the dictionary – that uses defined words to illustrate the definitions of others, we have to have some contextual reference to the words used to define other words to be able to actually give them any real meaning for ourselves. Which is to say that meanings must be construed. 

This makes me "happy". This feels "good". How many times have we used those phrases only to find ourselves at the opposite end of the spectrum before we can blink an eye? I'm so "sad", I feel miserable! This sucks! The ancient rishis call it maya, or delusion and unfortunately, it's the root cause for the battle that goes on through the ages, affecting all humanity until at last they break free. But to break free is no easy task. It seems so much easier to ignore what it would take to do so, and settle for the little "wins" of instant gratification, only to be disappointed in their temporal nature.

So what does it mean to be eternally happy? How can something that we can't touch or taste bring the ultimate satisfaction? Why is affection so gratifying, and loss so devastating? When and how do we really succeed? Where can we find true and lasting love?

We won't know until we finally win the battle between the ego and the soul, the senses and spirit, the noise and the silence. Apparently, the only way to do so is to go within. Retreat from the battlefield where the senses reign and discover the beauty beyond definition that paints the infinite bliss of the inner world. Free from delusion.

And there you have it.