How do you find the time? Part 1

Isn't that the oddest question? When interviewers have a famous guest on the show, that's often the first question. This morning I heard it addressed to Liz Curtis Higgs, while I was driving to the coffee shop. She is a fabulous speaker, and our Women of the Word group did one of her video series a few years back. But you know what? Liz and I have the same 24 hours a day and 60 minute hours that the rest of you have. Oh Norma, you're retired. Yes, indeedy, and even when I wasn't, I was usually not busy. When I retired in 2000--something I did very deliberately--I didn't know very many retired people--especially librarians, but most of the OSUL group I knew in the 80s and 90s (some earlier) have now retired, plus many of the women in the reading club I joined in 2000 have now retired; I signed up for some art classes, and all of those people were retired. Women who were frantically busy and over scheduled when they were employed, are that way as retirees. People like me who always paced themselves and said "No, thank you" a lot, we are still pacing ourselves, taking naps, reading books, blogging and volunteering in meaningful activities. See my "Six reasons to be late to the party."

As I've opined many times in this blog, all the verbs you use with money, you use with time. Now, occasionally, I have "found" money--like a quarter in my winter coat the first time I put it on in the fall, or a stash of pennies in the drawer of the guest room. But money, like time, gets invested, spent, wasted, frittered, and saved.

In the United States, if we are employed we are protected from a lot of time decisions--our employer tells us what to do, when and where. Our employer may even decide we need more exercise or a different diet just because it pays for our insurance (doesn't really--that benefit comes from our labor). We may make our fashion decisions based on what our co-workers wear, or see the movies they recommend, or buy the computer they are raving about. There are so many regulations protecting us from decision making when we work, our brains possibly have become a bit flabby by retirement.

Here's my second opinion about time. You can have it all, but not all at the same time. In recent years, I've also learned you need to redefine the word "all" to suit your stage of life.

Most people my age, most retirees I know, stay very busy with grandchildren. One of my friends from high school has great-grandchildren. If our friends aren't driving half way across the country to help out with a new baby or to attend a dance recital, they are actively babysitting 2-3 days a week so their daughter (usually) can pursue her career or education. One of the biggest cultural beams I've had to remove from my eye is my amazement at women who worked full time and juggled parenting with a complicated schedule of babysitters, day-care, and private schools while I was staying home raising mine, and they are now virtually full time nannies for their own children's children. And not complaining at all! They love it. They can't wait to get that baby in their arms, or drive the carpool or volunteer at the school and attend all the games they missed 25 years ago. So now they can "have it all."

In my case, ALL will not include grandchildren--it's one of those concepts that rests on someone else's decision, and my two children have decided not to be parents. I'm OK with that now, but it took a long time--their advancing age and health problems encouraged acceptance of my new definition of ALL. And please, no cheap grace about the joys of volunteering with children as a "just as if" grandparent. We all have unique gifts--and that one isn't mine, plus I did that back in the 1970s.

Photo: My grandparents and their 9 children at their 50th in 1962. I don't know how many of us there are now but in 1993 it was around 100.

Part 2 will be tips on how to be a non-grandparent.