Hang Time 2013

Once again I find myself in the “Hang Time”, that period of time between Christmas and New Year's. Typically I have had enough Annual to be able to take that time, those days, as annual leave and not work for the entire week. Now that I'm in retirement it's weird this hang time feels altogether different. Before retirement the time between holidays or more accurately between work periods felt pressured. I don't think I really ever enjoyed that time because I was always sweating the return to work, particularly when I was manager of Access Utah. I always seemmed to have a board meeting to return to after the holidays or something. I would come in to the office rushed, having to make/print agendas, minutes of the last meeting and anything else which mght needed to hand out to the Board. If this stress was not enough there was always the underlying stress usually all through the holiday of having this return to work trauma. It's really weird now in retirement there is no stress, and never returning to work unless you count what I do is volunteer which is not work at all.

And no longer do I feel I have to cram as much living recreating into a period of days and feel bad even guilty if I waste some of this precious “vacation” time. I am enjoying, really enjoying hang time this holiday season, getting up when I wake up not getting a because I told myself to get up at a certain early hour. I make appointments for things I need to do not things I have to do because of the job– I truly am working for myself ,really kind of enjoying myself, perhaps for the first time.

I keep looking at the calendar reminding myself that this is the hang time in the calendar and not just days on the calendar,the days on the calendar just do not m mean what they used to. I used to fixate on the day that Christmas or New Year's with fall-on trying to figure out which holiday would be the longest depending on where it landed on the calendar I. E. Sunday holidays were longer because you got the day afterwards as a holiday too and this seemed to make a difference during work time but not now. I would suffer a small feeling of loss when the holiday would be over saying goodbye the free time enjoyed for a short space. This feeling is similar to waking from a nap,the feeling is almost physically painful to have to go through the waking process again. Closing the holiday was like saying good bye to an old friend you did not want to leave. Now all my hours are precious even more so, because all the hours really do belong to me.