There’s something incredibly soothing about going to bed on a Sunday night knowing you don’t have to get up early.
And then getting up early anyway.
One of the best things about retirement is the pure luxury of slow Monday mornings, even if the feeling is bittersweet.
The dawn of a September Monday is the like the soft touch of your grandmother’s hand, comforting but short-lived, especially when you are of a certain age.
With the exception of federal holidays, Labor Day among them, slow Monday mornings are a long time coming for American workers.
For most of my life, a weekday morning was ground zero for the day’s chaos that was sure to come.
For decades, indeed a lifetime, my mornings were spent rushing — to school, to the bus stop, to work. I hurried through showers, backpacks, lunches, traffic, meetings, deadlines. I hustled through my childhood, my teen years, my young adulthood, parenthood, empty nesting and mid-life.
I was always in a hurry.
As a child of the ’60s and ’70s, I grew up believing a woman could “have it all.” Many of my female predecessors had fought for my generation to have that opportunity. I never wanted to lose sight of the privilege or the responsibility.
Yet, early on, I learned to do that meant getting up early and, often enough, staying up late. My peers and I were a driven, boot-strapping hive of expectation, multitasking, adapting and moving at the speed of light from task to task.
Unless you were a teacher, a working woman’s summer was just another season, fraught with schedules and deadlines and the added stress of finding full-time childcare while the kids were off.
It always seemed fitting that Labor Day should fall the first Monday in September. Not only did the holiday bring a brief pause to the newly begun madness of a fresh school year, but it seemed to say to working moms, “Did the summer pass you by? Here’s an extra day.”
For many years, I could hardly fall asleep on Sunday nights for fear of how manic the following day would break. I had a demanding job that often caught up with me at night. I would lie awake, worrying about deadlines, appointments, misspelled names and, more than anything, how my career was affecting my kids.
I was pulled in every direction. And yet, it also was an exhilarating time. There was so much to do, and so much more I wanted to do.
Looking back, the rewards were immeasurable. I had a career, a passion, not just a job. I met fabulously talented and determined people. I contributed to work that bettered lives. I shared with the world the stories of amazing accomplishments, incredible serendipity and horrific loss. I did my best to both record and give context to our times. I was blessed with the means to use my God-given talents to contribute to society.
And, through it all, I got to raise two selfless, wonderful women who are now “having their all.”
Those days of rigid, crammed schedules are behind me now. No more rushing to fires, hunting down sources, obsessing over word choices, questioning sentence structure and triple-checking data before hurrying home to make dinner, pack lunches, chauffeur to music lessons, and launder gym and band uniforms.
But also, there is no more taking for granted that time is on my side. No more lofty goals or long-term story ideas. Where do I see myself in five years? That is a terrifying question.
I am grateful I was able to have both a career and a family, and the stamina to keep at it.
Everyone should have choices. Both of my daughters opted to be stay-at-home moms once their children were born. It can be a financial strain at times, but it is a selfless decision to put on hold a rewarding career for the benefit of someone else.
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I am grateful they can heed their heart’s calling, as I heeded mine. It’s not for everyone but I have loved my crazy, chaotic life.
When I first gave up full-time work, I didn’t know what to do with myself. But passions quickly emerged and needs quickly presented themselves.
My favorite activity now is spending time with my grandchildren. We paint, bake, create stories, give each other makeovers and teach each other new things. I show them how to grow green beans and tomatoes, they show me how to get to the next level of Super Mario.
Still, even in the quiet of the morning, the clock ticks loudly.
Where once it was about getting things done, it now is about the fear of being done.
An undercurrent of immediacy stays with me. Instead of work deadlines I now have bucket list deadlines and affairs to get in order and stuff to be cleared out. Each birthday brings disbelief that, indeed, another whole year has passed.
And there is the daily dread of wondering who among our peers will be next to leave this world. The point is no longer about the memories; it is about the moment.
These are happy, sad, relaxing, worrisome days, filled with new challenges and new limitations.
And one old hard-headed, steadfast constant:
There (still) is not enough time.
Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at [email protected].