I think this might be described as a mid-life crisis – or maybe a slightly-later-than-mid-life tiny-bit-excitable predicament.
Now that I’m nearly three-quarters of the way through my first year post-retirement, I had expected to be on an even keel and settled into routines and a new way of life. Strangely, that is not the case.
I will admit to the occasional day of boredom and listlessness. These are few, and I’m very positive about that, Perhaps it would be better if I could accept a bit more listlessness, but instead I have become more keen than ever to see and do everything. I always thought I was fundamentally a lazy person. Not physically – I have been a circuits enthusiast, a runner and am now still a manic walker – but I was never a great one to challenge myself intellectually, for example. Diligent – I always did the bare minimum required – but not energised to go beyond the brief.
In these moments of looming ennui, I have traipsed down the YouTubes and into the rabbit holes of old comedy series (I find I still LOVE the TV series Green Wing with a strange passion and have miraculously uncovered many ‘deleted’ or ‘unused’ scenes to enchant me when it’s raining) and peripheral film and TV star interviews which lead me to watch snippets or even whole productions that I had somehow missed in the past. I can become temporarily obsessed with people or productions very quickly, searching for more and more related material, listening to random podcasts to spike my interest yet further.
It is all a bit like being a teenager again, with little crushes and fads, but much much faster moving than it could have been back in the 1970s when we had fewer than a handful of TV channels, only really one radio station I knew about (unless there was a decent local one – I did not live anywhere metropolitan, although I think we could catch BRMB sometimes, so there was a chance of hearing Jasper Carrott!) and limited magazines we had to pay for or share.
I think in fact I feel a bit more like someone in their twenties – just out of education and looking to carve a pathway. I want to do some of the things I was not able to do when I was younger because I made different choices then. I have no regrets about those choices, and have a family and a lot of friends because of them, but it is exciting to experience – for example – the field of drama in my increased visits to the theatre and in participating as an Extra.
(Note – I have been unable to shed those hyphens!)