Retirement rhythms
I retired completely in January. Ahhhh.
Then, a pandemic dropped by. Aghhhhh!
I’d been easing into retirement over the past few years—retiring from patient care as I turned 65. Then working three-quarter time at my medical geek passions as designer-teacher-researcher-writer. Sandy and I had enjoyed the newfound freedom of no more weekend work or being on-call, now able to enjoy unlimited 3-day weekends. However, it took a bit of adjustment in the Rhythm of Closeness to balance our personal private time with the-two-of-us-together time. “It’s nice to have you around more, but NOW?! I had plans of my own.”
The pandemic required a new set of rules for the Rhythm of Closeness. Speaking for myself, and apparently for others, I can get a bit stir-crazy hunkered down indoors. Frustration easily finds our favorite targets, whom we married a while back. But over the years, we had adjusted to children with the accompanying disrupted sleep, constant need, and untimely illness. We WILL adjust to this.
I had been riding my bike to work the past dozen years in all kinds of dry weather. It was my multi-purpose morning exercise, mental health moment, communing with nature, and commuting to work. I had continued the cycling on my retirement journey, with stops at the coffee shops on my days off. Tuesday became my day to meet friends for coffee, or lunch, or our twice-a-month evening men’s group. With the pandemic, all of that required safety adjustments.
Can we get some help here?
Heeding the calls for service to retired health professionals, I considered ways to apply my skills, but away from the personal risk of the patient care environment. Contact tracers! We needed contact tracers at our local health department. My offer was accepted with glee. I did my online training to learn the difference between isolation (the sick) and quarantine (the exposed who appear well), and joined the daily 8 AM health department Zoom calls as the medical expert of the hour. I could ride to the coffee shop, get my order before 8, sit outside on the patio, and join the COVID-19 team Zoom call. Eventually, I realized I could get back on the bike listening on Zoom, on my phone, on mute, waiting to respond if I was needed. The team knew it would take me about 20 seconds to pull over and unmute to respond. What a sweet combination of service, fitness, nature, and mental health.
How’s the family?
Our sons are scattered across time zones. Stuart, our oldest, works for Riot Games (maker of the video game League of Legends, and others) in Hong Kong where he’s been for 5+ years. He has a girlfriend, Dan, who we adore. They were able to come to Columbia for the solar eclipse in August 2017. We can do FaceTime calls with some coordination, and Sandy messages him often. Scott, the middle son, lives in Columbia in a house that Stuart still owns, so he likes the landlord. Scott’s splitting his time between work at a local book distributor and taking online classes in the information technology realm. He’s at our place a lot, so we each have two people to hug. Mark, the youngest, works in New York City at home now doing video production work for a small company that sells health and wellness products. We managed to squeeze in a trip to see his comedy improv class performance (think “recital”) in January, just before the shit hit the fan.
Sandy will have some words to say for herself, but I’ll just say that she’s retired, too. Her empathetic heart has been busy and burdened by the suffering around us. She is my best teacher, having to adjust her lesson plans because of the pandemic. Her class can get rowdy.
There has been loss—more of us experience it each passing week. My sister, Lori Belden Hainz, died in Saint Louis at age 60 in April after a lung transplant for severe lung disease (pulmonary fibrosis with pulmonary hypertension) as a result of a life-long version of scleroderma. The last few years were a quite a challenge for her and her family. She had such great support from her husband Scott and my wife Sandy, who was like a sister to her. We had a small celebration of life weeks later with our masks and sanitizer. There was Facebook-Live streaming for those who could not travel safely or fit in the limited venue space.
——
Consider this a holiday letter.
It’s been years since Sandy and I sent one. For a while, we still got them from most of our old friends Those letters tailed off except for the most hardy and dependable of letter writers. To you we are grateful. For the others with whom we have lost touch (except for Facebook, where I seldom tread), please forgive us. We forgive you. We love you.
Jeff (mostly) and Sandy Belden