Things I Have Learned This Past Year

Well, my husband and I just celebrated 35 years of marriage yesterday [13 Jan 2014]......it really doesn't seem like we could have possibly been married for that long!!!  I won't lie and tell you it has all been 'bliss' or 'roses', "Marriage Is Hard!"  I will say that it has been WORTH IT!  "He" has been WORTH IT and 'WE' have been worth it.  It is also coming up on my one year Anniversary for being a 'retired' person.  Here is a listing of some of the things I have learned this past year.


1)  Not everyone is 'happy' that I retired!  Don't get me wrong, my husband is supportive and feels that I have earned it after working for the Navy for 36 years.   Let's face it - I've worked in one capacity or other since I was 13 years old......first at a Seafood Restaurant during junior high school and then at retail stores until I got my BIG job with the Navy for $2.10 an hour in October of 1975.  Life went on from there and I clawed my way up the ladder, broke the proverbial 'glass ceiling' and made it to a GS-13 Installation Program Director at the Washington Navy Yard for the Safety Department.  Pretty good for a girl who has always been afraid of change and not always so sure of herself!


2)  I still don't know what I want to do "when I grow up"!  I gotta tell you that I am still having difficulty trying to figure out what I'm here for.  What my purpose is.  How I can make a difference in this world.  Sure I make small differences in my immediate family's lives - by babysitting my grandkids, by helping to pick the grand's up from school if their parent's are not available, by taking day trips with my Mom to see my brother at his store in Federalsburg where we get to play store helper for a few hours.  "BUT" - I still haven't found my nook 'post-retirement'!  Seriously, I just picked up an application from Home Goods today and am contemplating just putting in 24 hours a week there to get out of the house!  I can only clean this house so many times and go to the gym or mall to walk before it becomes 'boring'.


3) Sometimes a person you have LOVED can REALLY disappoint you.  That's all I'm gonna say about that.


4) Sometimes I just get the purest sense of JOY out of the 'littlest things' and I LOVE THAT!  It might be a word spoken out of the mouths of one of my grands or a look my husband gives me or a remark my children will express.  I don't know when it's going to happen - but it does and then - WOW - that little tingle starts at the top of my head and runs down to my toes and there it is - ZING!
This has been happening more and more lately as I find myself more able to focus in on what's happening around me.  I think I am FINALLY learning to 'be in the moment' and 'appreciating what I have.'  This might be because I am getting older - but - it feels wonderful and good and it fills me up in spaces where I've needed it for a long time.   "Love when that happens". 


Anyway - that's what's been on my mind lately. 


As always, Terrie