Retire to rest?

So what the heck happened? I retired 9 years ago at the end of August. Oh how sweet! Rest, relaxation mmm mmm. So where am I today?

Okay, I do get to sleep plenty, and that's nice. But I'm looking at a deadline for my novel, a deadline for the history project I'm involved in, a garden that must be kept up, my various discussion groups, time for photography jaunts, homework for a class I'm taking. Of course there is the housework, cooking and cleaning. Phew! Maybe I should go back to work so I can get some rest!

Oh and add to that my politics. So much is happening now, between the Hate Crimes legislation, health care, and racism run rampant in an ongoing national whine from defeated republicans. I'm too much a political junkie to ignore such tumult. So I must get my daily fix of CNN, MSNBC, Maddow and Olbermann, and finish it off with a bit of Stewart and Colbert.

Life really is pretty busy. So why am I complaining? Actually I'm not. Today I chase my passions, and that's a good thing. It's from such that a full life is built. As a child I used to think you learned a certain amount and then you taught. Now I know that learning is a life time experience, as much so as instructing. Often in sharing from my experience, I learn just as much from the experience of another.

Through all that fills my days, there is but one enemy, and that is time. Increasingly I know that life truly is finite. There is so much I hope to accomplish, and too much time has been wasted. Perhaps it's this thought that should be foremost in my heart as I face each new day. After all I never know which day will be my last. What stories I still have to share, and adventures still to be lived. All I have is today, so time to get to work!