My husband has officially put in a retirement date for Feb. 28. I want to make it clear that he’s a bit young for retirement at 62 and I’m much younger than him by 8 and a half years. Let the record show it’s important to me that people know I’m not old enough to retire. Not that I ever work outside the home, in fact this column is my only paid gig. My husband’s retirement, however, will take a lot of adjustment on my part.
I do write consistently during the days, chasing the dream of becoming the next great American novelist. I quit my daily blog at the beginning of the year to free up some time for other writing, because after seven years there are only so many ways I can describe domestic chores of laundry and cooking. There are only so many ways I can tell you how much I hate housecleaning. If I only write about my life once a week for this column, I can still come up with material, because my family is a never ending source of hilarity.
I am going to have to figure out how to have another person in the house ALL DAY LONG. I’m used to being alone for hours on end, without TV, radio or music. I can’t write if there are distractions. It’s hard enough to get work hours in on laundry day and stopping to figure out dinner. (Well, there ya go — I can still write about laundry and cooking.) I guess my husband’s retirement won’t trigger an end to those basic survival tasks, though he has promised to vacuum for me, which will be nice considering I don’t do it myself.
My daughters’ odd college schedules are a good transition for having my husband home all day. Just this morning one got up and out the door by 8:30, the other got up at 9:30 and won’t leave until around 11. Then my husband will be home by 2:15 p.m.
One aspect of having him home has been the idea that we will be free, even me. I can take my writing on the road. I can write in the dead of night. I can hold off on dinner until I’m finished writing instead of having a hangry husband hit the door at 2:15 wanting dinner after a hard day’s work. Now he can come in the house after a hard day in the shop and get a snack if dinner isn’t ready yet.
The freedom idea bleeds into our life with our daughters. They are commuting to school to save money and because there is no student housing available at their technical college. That’s fine. More power to them and their pocket books, but over the holiday and the last few weekends, my husband and I have realized that we don’t have to wait for them. If they want to see a movie we want to see, we should just go because they can and do make the time to go without us. If I want to cook a special dinner or we want to go out to eat, we should because they would go with their friends without us (go out to dinner, you won’t catch them cooking).
A whole new world of possibilities will open up to us. We can come home on Mondays from our road trips to avoid traffic. I can do laundry on Tuesdays instead of Mondays. A quote that’s been going around on Facebook is about to have a whole new meaning for us: Life is short. Take the trip. Buy the shoes. Eat the cake.
And we will.
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh by Gretchen Leigh,” or twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Life section.
