I thought I was prepared for retirement. I bragged that it wasn’t so much stopping work as changing careers because I intended to focus full-time on writing. Finish the stories I started. Revise the stories I’ve written that aren’t ready to meet the public. Give form and substance to ideas bouncing around in my mind like out-of-control ping-pong balls.

Have I learned nothing in 64 years? Bragging never works for me. As soon as I announce something loudly and with confidence, life proves me wrong immediately, without a pause, without a chance for me to escape before the truth elbows its way to the front.

So here I sit, retired two months, with very little to show for the time. Where is the writing I claimed was waiting in the wings for my freedom from employment? Where are the new eating and exercise habits that were going to create a visible glowing aura of health around me? Why do I still have a storeroom full of furniture to be dispensed with so we don’t have to move it? People ask, “How’s the writing going?” It’s not. I don’t have enough space left in my brain to let it in.

Hmmm. That didn’t work out quite the way I expected.

Time for a hard reboot.

This is not a “next stage.” This is not “catching up” on the things I’ve let go for the last 40 years. It is a totally new life, built on a cherished foundation of love and experience, but requiring a rebooted person to live it. Forget the tired programs I’ve been running with all their glitches and data drops. Store the important information in the Cloud, and perform a system update.

For others in my position who are wondering what I mean, let me explain how it will work for me.

Rebooted me is a mother who gives the help her children ask for, not what she thinks they need. Meaning, stop sitting and thinking of ways to solve their problems. Time to step back, to wait for them to come to me, to enjoy their friendship, and respect their choices as I would any other adult.

I am Grandma. Not Mom 2.0, but a whole new animal. This is a different time, a different era of society, more desperately in need of grandmas and grandpas than ever before. But being a grandparent now involves a lot more creativity and planning than previous generations. We are treading in bare, freshly-plowed fields, and we have to decide what and how to plant. Our children are the parents and raising their children to live in a world we can’t even imagine. They have the final word on all things regarding their kids.

One of the first questions people ask is “What do you do?” meaning what is your job. The answer is not “I’m retired.” I said it in my last post–not “retired” (tired again), but “renewed” (beginning again). I am a writer, that is my job, and all other employments are filler to earn a little money. My writing career is most critically in need of a system update. I also have to say that my last experiences with editors did not go well, and I came out of them feeling very much defeated and devalued, uncertain of writing as a worthwhile use of my time. The truth is, that is not their choice to make for me. I actually enjoy being edited, but not to the extent that I feel I have no right to write. If that is their belief, then it’s time to move on, not stop writing.

What I am not is a pontificating source of “wisdom” that no one has asked for. I was watching Young Victoria with Emily Blount the other night, and I was struck with the arrogance of Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany) constantly overriding her instincts with his expressions of “in my experience.” His assumption was that she was too young to have any of her own wisdom. Wisdom is not always earned. Sometimes it is built in to a person’s very being, thus children who seem “old beyond their years.” My new operating system is reactive to the requests of others, not proactive in assuming I know what they need.

We are building a house in a neighborhood of very successful, affluent people. This has always been an insecurity trigger for me. Not this time. My new system update removed the insecurity program. I have nothing to prove, nor do I have any qualification to judge. They are people, and we are people. I love our new house, it is my happy place, and I don’t really care what anyone else thinks about my “appropriateness” to live there.

I am now reaping the “rewards” of ignoring my body for 40 years. I’ve already had knee surgery, and I have some gastric procedures coming up. The list of problems is long and distinguished, and they represent a serious threat to my quality of life. Enough. Time to deal with health issues as they arise so they don’t become permanently incapacitating. I want to walk, I want to swim, I want to play on the floor with my granddaughter. The reboot includes notifications of health issues as soon as they appear, and relentless pop-ups until I prioritize their resolution.

A system reboot, but with the same hardware as always. I’m still me, running the same programs, but with significant updates.

Time to get on with it…