Wow! 2014!! Where have the years gone? They speed by quicker and quicker! It is already the middle of January and it seems like it was only yesterday that we celebrated Christmas!
Retired!
The biggest news for 2014 (so far) is that, as of 1/1/2014, I am retired!!! I never, ever thought I would see the day! I mentioned in an earlier post that there were some advantages to having stage IV lung cancer. I know most of you think I'm crazy (maybe so!!!), but if I didn't have cancer, I would still be working. For quite a few more years... Instead, I am getting to enjoy me time now while I can still enjoy it. The downside is that we have to go to treatments every two weeks, but the upside is that the treatment is working so I can enjoy being retired! :)
I am not sure that it has really sunk in that I don't have to go to work on this coming Monday. Vacation isn't going to end in another week! What a liberating feeling. Especially after being pretty miserable for the last few years at my job.
My challenge is going to be keeping myself from getting completely lazy. There have been a few days when I woke up and decided to just go back to sleep since I didn't have anything I really wanted to do. Don't get me wrong. There is PLENTY to do around here!! Plenty! It's a matter of "wanna" ... and I haven't had the wanna to get into my closet or the study and tackle the mess that each place holds. Maybe next week.
Before I retired, I envisioned myself spending lots of hours playing with my dogs - mostly hiking and having a great time enjoying the outdoors. Maybe it will still happen. It just so happens that last week was mostly really cold and sort of dreary ... my mood reflected the weather, for sure.
I thought I would be out and about with my camera - taking pictures of flowers, birds, insects, squirrels ... whatever I could find basically. Again, I hope it was the weather that stymied those plans.
I haven't had the luxury of not working since I was about 20 years old. Lots of my life was spent working full time, much of the time working full-time as an employee and running my own business. For several years, I added full-time student to the mix ... those were interesting times!!! Thinking back on them STILL makes me tired :) Always, there was wife and mom in the equation ... and I always tried to be supermom and superwife ... Yeah, like I said, looking back on those days makes me tired! And grateful they are in the past!
I guess it will take a little while to decide how to approach retirement. The idea of not having to do anything (except go to chemo every 2 weeks) is almost overwhelming. But, in a mostly good way!
RV
Robert and I have talked seriously about buying an RV and traveling around our great country. Since I've always had to work, we haven't done much traveling. I know a lot of people work and still manage to travel, but I always found that trips were tiring and I chose to use my vacation time to rest and recuperate. So, now that work is no longer an issue, we have really considered purchasing a home on wheels and beginning to explore the United States. Robert wants to be in Arizona when the professional baseball teams are in spring training. And, we (mostly me) have thought it might be fun to travel all around to different agility trials.
Well, we went to a big RV show in Fort Worth this week. I had looked forward to that show for months. I left so confused. I thought I wanted an RV that you drive - so the dogs would have more room as we traveled from place to place. Plus, I thought it would be easier to drive a vehicle that is all one piece!
We looked at so many recreational vehicles it would make your head spin (and your legs feel like they were about to drop off). And, I was left wondering if maybe a fifth wheel RV wouldn't be the better choice. Huh? Where did that come from?! I hadn't entertained that thought AT ALL until walking around the show.
Then there is that part of me that wonders if we want an RV at all. They are expensive in every way: to purchase, to drive, to park, and to store. Some of the RV parks that I looked at cost more per night to use than a La Quinta or similar hotel. Maybe we should just buy a nice SUV and drive that across the country and stay at hotels and cabins, etc. along the way. It would be far more economical.
Or shoot. Maybe we should just purchase a lakehouse and forget about traveling. A home on the lake with property where the dogs can run and play sounds pretty relaxing. I've gone this long without really seeing America. Is it really all that important that I start now?
So, there you have it! Conundrum!
But, as I sit and reflect on all of the questions and decisions that await us, I am amazed again that I am here and that these questions and decisions are even there to be made! I say it pretty often and it is because I truly believe it - I am so, so, so very lucky. And blessed. A lot of lung cancer patients WISH they could be more concerned with these kinds of questions and a whole lot less concerned with how the chemo makes them feel and what can be done to stop their tumors from spreading and slowly taking over their bodies and killing them.
I remain fully aware that the day may come when the drug I am on quits working. And my tumors will no longer remain dormant. At any time, the cancer may decide it has sat for long enough without movement and spread through my body in weeks or months. Life is not certain. But, the truth is, life is not certain for any of us. Not at all. And each of us should probably strive to keep that thought in the forefront of our minds. It might help us quit sweating the small stuff.
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