It’s been awhile since I last posted. I had written about retirement and the need to redefine my life. At the tender age of 69, I believe that I have finally redefined my life and feel comfortable in my new skin.
I had worked nearly 30 years in state government, but started out with a BS in Art Education and having teaching certificates, elementary education and Art K-12. During this training, I learned pottery, silversmithing, drawing and painting. I still have some items I made in college. I never really taught other than substitute teaching, scabbing, and running my own private, state licensed, preschool and kindergarten. When my kids were older and I was divorcing their father, I landed a state job that gave me a long career that started out in mental health and ended in behavioral health. I was fortunate to go back to school for my MPA, master’s public administration, which led to mostly management type positions. About midway in my career, I became a nationally trained administrative law investigator while continuing work within state government. I loved this work, plain and simple. It was very difficult when I retired in 2013, because I felt at a loss leaving my work behind. You could say that retirement was forced on me, as I was faded out due to age and having a boss that was allowed to force out other long-term employees shortly before their normal retirement age. I was one of the lucky few that at least had enough state-work years in to achieve full retirement benefits.
However, this blog is really about redefining myself and getting back to some root talents and love. I fell in love with art my junior year of high school. By my senior year, I had decided to go to school to be able to teach art. Due to “life” circumstances, I never really taught other than what was mentioned above.
In the late 70s, early 80s, my mom started taking some art classes with Priscilla Hauser. My mom became a wonderful painter and on occasion when I went home to see her, my mom showed me some of the painting she had learned from her classes. I purchased some of the art books from Priscilla Hauser, Sherry C Nelson, and others. I started painting again. But with work, going back to school, and raising four children as a single parent, painting was put away.
In the early years of my retirement, I became immersed in hiking. When I could, I took road trips with my paw and we camped and hiked. In 2018, my standard poodle, Jake, and I traveled 6600 miles, camped for about 18-20 nights, visited 13 National Parks and visited family for 2-3 nights each. In 2019, my new standard poodle, Ghost, and I camped and hiked for another 2-3 weeks, but stayed in places for a longer duration. On our last night camping before heading home, I fell and tore my hamstring. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such pain before this injury. One of my daughters drove me from CA, where the injury occurred, to AZ where I lived so I could obtain treatment.
During my retirement in 2013 until now, 2020, I sold my home and moved into an active adult community into a condo I purchased. Moving to this active adult community was a lifesaver for me. I had hundreds of clubs at my disposal, four recreational centers, and neighbors my own age. There was also golfing, but, alas, I’m, not a golfer. Instead, I joined a silversmithing club, a pottery club, a photography club and took some painting classes. The clubs got to be not as enjoyable as I would have liked and they each required us to work at the clubs, which helped keep the membership dues very low. However, I felt too strung out between all the clubs, so due to my hamstring injury recovery period and simply wanting to lesson my involvement, I dropped all the clubs.
The good thing about dropping the clubs is that it gave me more time to paint. I love painting and now have the time to paint everyday, if I so choose. I belong to a painting online website, “Let’s Paint with Plaid”, and watch many youtube videos from great painters.
I feel like I am improving every day and creating enough inventory that I hope to start selling in the foreseeable future. I can honestly say that I’m now comfortable with retirement and miss my working years less and less. With the pandemic, I’m not sure I will travel this year, and at the moment, my walks and hikes are confined to my local environment. But, that is okay. I feel healthy and love to paint. I’m including some pictures of paintings, which include paintings I’ve done in the 1980s and 2020s.
~ Intertwining Lives ~ 