Tic Toc Tic Toc

Have you noticed that you often wish you could have a break from “life”.  What I mean is just some time to do nothing, to take it easy and to think of only you.

I know I did.  Working all week, cleaning the house, running errands on the weekend, taking care of our parents, family and social activities, etc. seemed overwhelming and I was often feeling tired. 

So, having had an operation a week ago and having been given the instructions to “do nothing, to take it easy, to think only of myself” should come as a welcome respite from “life”.

Turns out, it isn’t!  I think the problem is that my brain does not know how to be in “take it easy mode”.  It keeps working although my body is not following suit.  It goes over all the things I should or could be doing and I am sitting here feeling like I am wasting time.

Humans are funny, we spend our whole life running after time trying to make the most of it and when you are handed “time” on a silver platter, you don’t know what to do with it.  I can’t help but wonder if this is what retirement will be like.  Too much time.

I’ve always thought that I was someone who had enough interests to keep me busy (like reading, photography, writing, electronic scrapbooking, decorating, etc).  But having interests is not enough, you also need health.  Because my body is taking all my energy to recover from this operation, it seems like there is no energy left to do anything else.

I know this is only a temporary condition (for which I am thankful) and most of you will say, take it one day at a time, enjoy the break, be patient…but I have come to realize, that I am not a very patient person.  I expect a lot from myself.  I expect to be “tougher” than everyone else and be able to get better…faster.  Funny me!!

In conclusion, although this is not a New Year’s resolution by any means, in the next few weeks, I vow to do nothing, to take it easy and to think of only myself and to work at “enjoying my free time”. 

But once my body is “healthy again”, I vow to work at improving my overall health to ensure that I can face my retirement with a healthy mind and body so that I can take advantage of my precious time.

I know, that within a few months, I will be back to my old self of doing too much, of thinking of others first because that is who I am.  I just hope that I can look back on this “gift of time” and learn from it.

Time may be precious but health is priceless.