Retired?
For months now, Mom has been working towards "retirement." I didn't know what the heck that was, but everyone was very excited about it. It came as a big surprise, because Mom's not really old enough to retire, but she said, "They offered me the chance to go early, and I'm taking it!" I asked Dad if this was like the chance someone else at her work recently got to step away and they called it "fired," but Dad assured me Mom's "retirement" was really just that.
Knowing it was legitimate, though, didn't help me know what it was. Dad just kept saying how happy I was going to be with Mom around the house all the time. That sure sounded good to me, but we're nearly three weeks in, and Mom and I have NOT spent a lot of time just hanging around the house! I asked Dad - what the heck is up with this false advertisement?!
Dad said he could tell me two things - 1. Mom's retirement was off to a rough start. The first few weeks brought nothing but loss, so Mom had to do what she needed to do for herself and her family, and 2. Mom will never really be retired; she'll always have something going on.
"So, you lied?" I said.
Dad was a little defensive. "No! Mom doesn't go to work early every morning and come home right at dinner time anymore, does she?" he demanded.
"Well, no, but she's sure not here all day long with me!"
Dad said he was sorry he didn't better clarify that retirement just meant Mom wasn't going to her job every day, but he also said I had to cut him some slack for both the unexpected that life brings and the crazy that Mom brings. I understood that the unexpected life brings thing was all about the grief through which our family was working, but I wanted to get his perspective on Mom's crazy, since I have my own opinions.
He thought for a second and said, "Well, one thing is her signing up for -"
"The snack cart!" I finished for him.
"Uh, no, I was going to say the football concession stand, but you're right, the snack cart thing is in the same bucket."
See, Mom doesn't do relaxing real well, so she always tries to be busy. While most people would be happy to just put their feet up on the porch in retirement, Mom is not most people. Big Brother has moved on to high school now, so she's put her two feet in there vs. the porch. First came the concession stand. After just one night of that, Mom told Dad they had a good operation, but she thought she would probably do it differently. Dad cited this as Exhibit A of why Mom can't retire - she's always got to be figuring something out.
Next came the snack cart, which sounds exactly like the treat trolley in Harry Potter, and Mom said, "That's about the size of it, but there's two carts and at least two Moms to push them and collect the cash." After one time of that, she told Dad all the things they could do differently there. He said this was Exhibit B.
A few times into the snack cart, the second mom pushing treats with Mom was the lady who runs the concession stand. When Mom reported that to us, Dad's face, without his lips saying a word, said, "Oh no. You didn't tell her what you thought about the concession stand?" And Mom, not needing Dad's lips to say anything, saw his face and said defensively, "She asked!"
I told Dad I agreed with his examples of Mom's unrelaxing crazy, but I had a few of my own, which include her quest to deep clean every inch of the house and start painting the upstairs.
"So even when she is home, she's not hanging out with me!"
Dad said to love Mom is to love all of her, including the part that can't really retire or relax. She might not go to a job outside the house anymore, but she's never going to be able to stop jumping into things to both help out and "help" by sharing her uncensored thoughts.
She's also going to want to maximize her time around the house to complete projects she's been thinking about for a long time but never had the time to do. He said Mom was basically living a dream at the moment, doing all the things she missed out on because of her work schedule for the last 22 years. He said I was going to have to be happy with the time Mom did give me, like our morning tea or our afternoon porch sits while we wait for Big Brother to come home. He said, sometimes you just have to take what people can give you, and right now, Mom can't give me porch sitting or TV watching all day, because she's busy living the dream.
Sigh. I liked the sound of retirement better when it meant Mom and I were going to be hanging out pals, but I told Dad I would try to adjust to this new version of retirement.
"Aw, Gus," Mom said when she finished typing this for me. "I'm sorry you're disappointed in retirement so far, but I appreciate the support. Tell you what - every day, no matter what I'm doing, we'll be sure to have our time together, ok? And I know what else! You could maybe go in the car with me to run some errands, now that the weather is cool. Does that sound like a compromise?"
I suppose you can guess by the pics that I leveraged Mom's guilt to net everything she promised, and I've found that to be an acceptable compromise.
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