An Older and Better Me

Oceans of Time

Did something special happen in my life when I reached the retirement age in Norway, 67? I mean - did something fundamental, ground-breaking happen to me?

Was there a changeover to something totally new and different in my life?

Or was it simply that life only continued, a bit different, but the same life, mostly in the same tracks?

Almost all my life I have spent my time working, more or less systematic and targeted. First about 20 years of education (school and university studies to qualify for work), and then paid work for about 40 years, from 1974 to 2014.

Being in full employment meant to me like to everyone that I have given away a lot of my time for doing the work for my employer, who has "owned" me during this time. In my case, the work I did was teaching, most of the years as a lecturer in Upper Secondary, 7.5 hours a day, five days a week.

And then this happened just a little more than three years ago - I quit working.

I cannot say this came unexpectedly, it was rather planned and expected. But almost over the night the limits of my life changed significantly. I was all of a sudden able to decide over my time myself. All the time, every day, every hour of the day I could decide how to use alone, I could spend my time for the private and family-oriented purposes that I myself wished to prioritize.

This new, unfamiliar liberty! - This huge change!

I've got it a bit at a distance now, but in the beginning I think I was a little numb, slightly knocked out. - What would I do with all this time, with this newly won liberty?

It took some time for me to get into this new state. Took some time to find out. - Was life almost ended now? Finished in the work life, done with so much in life?

The first period was a bit unusual. Days that were unstructured, where I was looking for what I wanted to do with these days, all this time I had suddenly gotten up in my lap.

I took it quite softly, a little backward, layback. I wanted to see what was to come.

The first period after I had finished working was a bit like a fog. I had of course seen it coming, but I can not say that I had made me a strategy for how I should handle it.

The first weeks after I retired, I experienced somehow a little fluid. This word - retired - was a word inside of me that I, in the unconscious, shovelled away. And this was probably a symptom, an indicator that not everything was all right about me.

The first weeks after I quit working, I usually slept in the morning. It was like a mountain of sleep that I needed to climb and take in possession.

Occasionally I thought about it. This would be my life hereafter, without any workplace to go to, and all this time that I would have to my disposal! What should I fill this time with, this undefined empty space?

There was basically no big drama attached to this. Nothing was unforeseen, nothing came truly unexpected on me. I could offer myself the rare luxury of cooling it all down, just let time flow and let the mind and body flow in time, just the way it suited me.

In the morning I could wake up, maybe I heard that the others stood up and got ready to meet the new day, at work or school.

I could lay in bed, sleep on there, let me slip into the mild and mellow morning sleep. I could take a book from the bedside table and read on from the night before. Or I could pick up my phone or computer and check newsheads and emails.

There was no sudden transition. In fact, it was a slow process, this transition to a living in new time frames.

I could stand up, put on a training suit and walk or run for a trip. Or I could ride the bike to Hordvikneset and over the bridge. I could take the car and drive somewhere, find something stupid or something new to do. Like walking in the mountains near the town together with likes in the local touring association, like driving to the mall and trolling a cart unintentionally between the racks inside the big supermarket and finally going through the cashier to the car with shopping bags heavy of drinks and food.

It took some time to get used to this new life. In the morning I was the only one in the house. For many hours, the house was empty of those who usually give life there, except for me, who no longer had something to go to, like work or school.

I will admit that there were a few hours that can seem like a waste. I could walk from room to room, I looked over the fjord, saw the gray skylight over the land further north, I saw that there was some snow on the mountain tops. I sat down in the kitchen, made me coffee, some morning food. Yes, I admit it, I was on the verge of boredom, I did not have meaningful alternatives to scrolling down and up on webpages looking for the latest news.

It took some time before I saw it clearly. I had come to a stage, to a place in life where the framework had significantly changed, and where perhaps the biggest and most noticeable change was time.

And I made an interesting discovery:

I noticed that time was there for me, and that things were not as urgent as before.

I realized that I had oceans of time ahead of me and around me.

I actually had come to a point of life or a state of existence where I simply was privileged!