Best Experience

I’ve been doing the retirement countdown for almost two years. Seriously counting for the last ten months. Two months from yesterday is my first day of retirement. I’m very prepared and very scared. It’s a massive change in life. In so many ways, work on the house, around my yard, sorting, cleaning, time for walks and reading and writing and a break. All of those are on my immediate horizon and for that I’m grateful. The other side is almost every one of my friends will continue to work. I’ll no longer be part of their calendar, so to speak. I need to be busy - what if I get bored? I’m not made of money - what if I can’t live on my pension? Those are some of the thoughts that float through this tired mind.

When I started this blog it was a way for me to cope with the changes that come with getting older, closer to retirement and the very old house I bought. It was a way for me to express my thoughts, share some of the updates I did to the house and plan for the future. I think it’s turned out okay. I got some interesting feedback in the beginning and now I have people who look forward to a new blog. For that encouragement, I’m truly grateful.

The blog did something else. It helped me discover a passion. Now, I still want to write a whole blog about passion that is broad in scope. This is quite narrow in scope and is all about me. Read on if you dare.

I’ve always been a passionate person - if the topic mattered to me. As a single parent, it was easy to be passionate about my son. I wanted to give him the best but struggled to ensure he learned along the way. He certainly wasn’t handed everything. I didn’t have the money to support that lifestyle but he got a chance to try things. I still have sand art he just had to do; for about one afternoon. He decided (long story about politics in kids’ sport that I’ll leave out of this) to quit soccer and try hockey. I still don’t know how, given the cost, but I made that happen. He wanted to go to work when he was young. Together, we made that possible. They were hard years but when I look back, I’m proud of my parenting job. Not perfect but human.

Politics can get me fired up. I love a good political debate. I’m horrified by a lot of what I’m seeing in the political arena today and do not understand how people, most of them good people, can be taken in by a swindler. Because that’s what’s happened. They were sucked in and allowed him to gain office again. I’m a true believer in democracy and the freedoms that come with it and I’m passionate in my desire to ensure it remains.

I’m always passionate about family. My mom is an amazing matriarch. What she does for her family is incredible. What she has to teach us and share with us is overwhelming. I hope everyone gets a chance to learn from their parents and their grandparents. There is so much wealth in the time spent together. My sister is in education in the elementary system. She looks after the most vulnerable of our society in school and often the most behaviourally challenged. She gets paid a pittance. There are times she should get danger pay and doesn’t.

I love music and it can bring me to tears and cheers. I love artists who bring their hearts and souls to the stage. It’s rare that my house is completely silent as I usually have music on in the background. Some of the older groups and artists are my companions on mornings like this. The soulful tunes of Roxy Music or Sting, the upbeat rhythms of George Michael and Angelique Kidjo. The raspy voice of Bruce Springsteen or the strength in Josh Groban. It’s mostly a quiet passion as I don’t share it with a lot of friends but it sustains me. Music provides a place to heal and to celebrate. I couldn’t live without it.

I’ve written a bit about some ways in which I’m passionate. They’re topics that bring out passion in me. Areas that can evoke a swell of emotion. But they aren’t my passion. I didn’t look up the definition but to my way of thinking, passion is about creativity. Maybe it’s organization. Project managers, the good ones, must be great at organization. Getting so many different people on the same path toward success requires some creative thinking. It could be the production of music. I have a nephew who plays lots of instruments and is a member of two or three bands. Music is his passion. My son has been a photographer since he was a small child. His eye for colours and framing the subject is incredible. I can barely point and shoot with my phone. He’s moved into videography as well and his editing talents are quite stunning to see. I have a friend who is passionate about community involvement. She volunteers, she joins, she participates and she’s quite amazing. But I don’t think it’s her passion. I think she’ll find it, though.

Yesterday, I had one of the best experiences of my life. As I wrote earlier, this blog was a means to an end. I was trying to express all that I was going through and I did it through the written word. What has happened has awakened a passion in me and I’m still trying to learn what to do with it. I feel compelled to write. I have stories that flood my brain and I’m not always sure where they came from. I see something, just a glimmer of something and I’m making notes on index cards because I know there’s something there. It’s leading me to a story.

In some ways I feel strange about it. After all, I’m no longer young. I’ll never be young again. What does it mean to come to a passion later in life. And in other ways, I’m relieved. I didn’t have time before now. In fact, for the next two months (minus a day!) my schedule is packed. When my son was a child I was busy trying to work shift work, pay bills, get food on the table, enjoy friendships, build a home and so on. I’m not sure this passion was meant for earlier in my life. Now I have all of those experiences to look back on. They shape the person I am today and I’m not sure this new adventure would be possible without them.

Yesterday I was blessed to have a meeting with an editor. He works in the publishing world, is a published author himself and has a great eye for content. I submitted my first 5000 words for his review. It’s a novel. My first novel. A novel I believe in. A novel I’m passionate about. A passion I want to share. It’s a story inspired by a woman I met a few years ago. I’ve written a number of scenes for it but I really need time. Time to sit down and write. Time that isn’t overwhelmed with thoughts of my day job. (As an aside and perhaps an explanation - I was awake at 230 a.m. on Friday worried about my work budget because I can see it blowing up before I’m even gone!) The words that crowd my brain want and need to get onto the page.

Back to the meeting. I was worried all week. This meeting could be the end of my dream. All I prayed for was that he wouldn’t be cruel. The conversation was a little overwhelming. The first words of his printed assessment were “Engrossing read from the first two paragraphs”. The page in my hands started to shake as I took them in. Oh my goodness. It isn’t crap. Someone believes in what I have to write. Holy cow. The list goes on. I had a lot of words whipping through my mind. As I continued to read his assessment I saw it wasn’t sunshine, which made me believe even more in what he wrote. He didn’t like the prologue - my favourite part of what I’d submitted. There are more comments, marks on the pages than I saw even in lit courses in university. Thank goodness he used a green pen instead of red! Our hour together went overtime.

He gave me a writing assignment. Two in a matter of speaking. One is a literary competition that I was considering and will now enter. The other is a one-pager about an idea that flitted through my mind and is captured on an index card. It means he wants to stay connected. It means he thinks I can do this.

In the little room deep in my heart, I know I can write. It’s fuelled by friends who say good things to me but it can be silenced by the harsh critic that lives in my mind. Mind and heart. So, that’s my not-so-well-kept secret. I have a passion. I have to write. The mind says I also want to publish and be read and have people want my next book and my next. And I want to sell my books.

Two months can’t come fast enough. I can’t wait to switch from Teams calls to hours at my antique desk figuring out the next sentence and paragraph and chapter. I hope you’ll come with me on my new adventure.