A Retirement Recoup

Every once in a while, I have the need for a day. You know, a day is when you take a day just for yourself and kind of get your mind straight and your body healed. When I was working, we referred to them as mental health days. When I was working shiftwork, it really meant I was either playing golf or adding a day to my fishing on the Miracle Mile. In either case, it always served its purpose, I felt better about the world and the feeling that I needed to kill something vanished. In my later years of being a manager, I conveniently had all 13 employees on telework two days a week. Some managers might stay home and work from there too, but I would go into work as it was a quiet place with only a handful of people about and none of them worked for me. I would get caught up on all the work that was looming over my head, not really getting any attention because I was having to deal with something or someone else. They served as mental health days just the same as playing hooky. These days, it is mostly to let my body recoup from mowing, edging, and weed whacking. As lazy as it seems, I do feel better and am ready to get back to work around the old hacienda.

Although my second back surgery has been much easier to deal with in terms of pain and my ability to move normally throughout the day. It also has been more frustrating because I feel I can do more than I should or am capable of doing. I still watch what I’m lifting and the weight, although I increase the maximum amount occasionally and go with that restriction for a while, I’ve had to revert back to an easier amount to lift or amount of work to accomplish. I hate the steps backwards, but in the end, Jen reminds me that the recovery is supposed to take two years, not two months. I’m hardheaded though and want what I want and that is probably why I’m in this predicament in the first place. However, I don’t fight the whole thing of taking better care of my back like I used too. I’ve learned my lesson about being able to walk being better than not walking at all or with a limp for the rest of my life. Now if I can get my foot problem ironed out, I might actually feel great again.

Feeling great is relative though. We are coming up on a vacation to Lake Tahoe. We do this trip most every year, but in the more recent years, we have really limited our hiking or walks due to either my back, breathing condition, or just plain fat and out of shape. Jen does great and although I seem to work my ass off around here and sweat out at least two people a day, I have little success trimming the waistline. I’m sure I snack more than I should, but in my younger days, if I worked physically like I do now, I wouldn’t have the same issues. Most active seniors tend to see them lose weight, but for whatever reason, I’m not one of those people. I tried to get the shots weekly and had them prescribed for over a six months, but never found a pharmacy that any on their shelves, so I gave up. I have a doc appointment coming up, maybe I’ll talk to her about it again. Erica suggested intermittent fasting, and I’ve been looking into that, and it really does hold some promise, I just need to start. The other thing I’ve been reading up on is chair yoga for men. It looks like something I could do with my back and may help in my ability to bend and get around better. They make it sound like it is the cure to end all cures, well if you believe that then I have a couple acres in the swamps of East Texas I’ll sell you.

I do feel better for sure though. I was able to remove a callous from my big toe that has been bothering me for years. I’m putting working hands lotion on it and it seems to be working. I have to admit that someone was right in suggesting it to me the other day. Within days, I’ve seen the change I had been hoping for, again, for years. My eczema has flared up again and my hands and feet are peeling in big chunks of skin. It’s embarrassing how my hands look, and I feel like a lizard or snake person shedding old skin. I am wondering if it is causing some numbness on my fingertips too. One of the fingers that I have been feeling little sensation is back to normal after peeling. Now I just have one more finger to peel to call it a success. Of course, medically it doesn’t make sense, but I only know what I’m feeling and what my body is telling me in feedback. Don’t need someone else to confirm that for me, I’ll take better, even if silly for what I’m thinking every day. Besides, I don’t listen well to others or put much salt in what others say or least my pool of influencers very small compared to most. I trust myself to feel my way through life. Now that can be good or in some cases, not so good, and I regret not getting help with some things along the way.

Retirement has brought me the freedom to contemplate in a slower fashion and take better care and account of things for myself. My biggest problem still boils down to weight and the ability to change my current circumstances. Jen wants to start a new dietary plan and has told me it starts this week. But she has been doing a workshop two of the days and will again tomorrow, so she doesn’t feel like cooking, maybe next week will be different, time will tell, but then again, it isn’t her problem, and she has done great utilizing exercise and Ozempic. They won’t give it to me because I’m not diabetic. The weight loss version is what I tried to get for months. Maybe the doctor will re-prescribe it for me and maybe the pharmacies will actually be able to get it now. I heard there was a factory fire and is why they weren’t able to produce enough of it, I don’t want to do a gastric bypass, and frankly watching my sister and her husband, it is the last thing I would ever consider doing. One of my kids is looking to do it and has met the requirements for it and is now waiting out the cool-off period to see if she really wants to proceed. It may turn out that I’m just a plump old man forever and everyone will just have to be ok with that. Mostly, I might have to accept that things in life aren’t always fair, but maybe self-imposed starvation will finally sound plausible. Just maybe, things will work in my favor, and this will just be a complaint in the past. It could happen, I haven’t had a spoon of peanut butter in three weeks, anything is possible!