Trials and Tribulations
She tried hard to accept her retirement. It seemed that her life had changed overnight from that of a woman with a purpose to that of a nobody. She had carelessly lost touch with all of her working friends, her closest and dearest friend had moved 400 miles away and although they e-mailed and telephoned often it wasn't the same as seeing her everyday. It had always been easy for her to make new friends, but now it was not so easy to keep them in the long term. She missed having a purpose, seeing new people, meeting old friends and the making of new ones.
For the first few months of retirement it felt like she was on vacation. But after a while she became aware that she wasn't on a 'break'. Her retirement was actually her new life - doing small jobs around her apartment, taking long walks around the neighborhood, poking around second hand stores. She had no plans, no hobbies, no other ambitions. She distracted herself by organizing her picture albums and cleaning out closets. She soon realized that there was nothing else for her. She felt unwanted and worthless and very depressed. Her life had truly been filled with children and grandchildren and work. Her family and friends had been so very important but they now all had their own lives to live. Retirement began to seem like a kind of purgatory - an empty void of boredom and loneliness stretched out in front of her - and it put her at a complete loss.
Struggling to fill her days she built a routine around television schedules. In the early morning she would make herself a cup of tea and then go back to bed with it and watch morning television shows. At around ten o'clock she would shower and dress and then eat her toast in front of a made-for-TV movie. After lunch she would go to the mall and then maybe shop for a few groceries. Other days she would walk in the morning and then fill her afternoons with programs about decorating, cooking, or talk shows. She slowly lost interest in doing anything for herself. Some days she didn't leave her apartment at all - there just didn't seem to be any point.
Sleeping at night was difficult until she found unexpected solace in a bottle of rum she discovered while cleaning out a cabinet in the dining room hutch. The alcohol made the low hum of anxiety, the lonely and empty feeling she had had since her retirement, evaporate and helped her slide easily into a deep and restful sleep. Night time drinking became a habit for her after that - a secret indulgence. She looked forward to her night time rums and and thought of it as an advantage to living on her own. She could do as she pleased with nobody to judge or criticize her. Often she would bring her dinner to bed, on a tray, as early as eight p.m., have a few drinks afterward and the next thing she would be asleep. Sometimes she woke up in the morning in the same position, with her dinner things spilled all around her and the TV still on. Other times, she would turn off the television, then take the dishes to the kitchen, although usually she couldn't remember having done any of it.
Her drinking didn't affect anyone else, so she never saw any harm in it until she started to get the bloating around her stomach area. She thought that it was something to do with drinking and eating late at night. But in the end it was the pain in her stomach - which she also thought was caused by her bad habits - that sent her to her doctor's office, where she discovered that although she thought she knew herself, it was only when her back was suddenly against the wall with a cancer diagnosis, that she was able to finally discover what she was truly made of and what she truly meant to her family and friends. Looking back on her life through her lonely retirement, she had only seen pain, mistakes and heartaches, but now, in her darkest times, they taught her to see strength, learned lessons and pride in herself. And so her fight to live began.....
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