Chapter 40 : Runnning for fun

After entering the fun run I notice that it is raising money for the Royal Hobart Hospital. That’s spooky. That’s my hospital. Looking at the website I see many happy smiling faces training or preparing for the fun run around Hobart’s docks.  Every face has a story. About running or the hospital.  I see information about the RHH and photos of equipment that was bought from previous fun runs.

Three days before the race we go to the city to have a coffee and cake and visit a running shop. At the shop is a table which has several boxes containing race numbers. We (Me and wifie) get our numbers by telling the lady our names. Too easy. We leave. Each number contains a timing chip.

At home I tell one of my daughters (who works at the RHH) about the fun run and say, “I don’t want publicity. “

“Well why would they do that?”

“I’ve been in the hospital for 7 weeks and now I’m raising money for it.  I’ve seen their website. There are pictures of such people. They would love somebody like me. And my story.”

“There will be nothing.”

“Good.”

Before the race I contemplate the race. Who is going to be there? Any Doctors or nurses? Anybody to recognize me as a former patient?  As for my previous life. Any of my former patients to recognize me?

I know I can finish. It’s not a long run. What time will I do? What is a good time? What is a bad time? Who cares? Time is irrelevant. What does matter then? I want to have a good run. To enjoy the run. How do I do that?

I want to be in the zone. To have that moment when my mind and my body are one. To have that moment when I am thinking of nothing but running. That moment when I am so consumed with running, I know nothing about the future or the past. And if I achieve this one moment with my mind and body working together I may find my limits. I might find what I am capable of.  I might know myself a little deeper.

Race day is overcast. Looks ominous. In the past I used to look out the window and guess. Today I go to the internet and it tells me there is a 90% chance of showers. I can’t argue with the net. It’s not allowed.

We get a lift to the start.

We see a milling crowd of people, dressed to run. I don’t see any faces I recognize and names that I have forgotten. I head for the tail of the group and then without warning a gun fires and people, in the front, start to run. We don’t. We shuffle and walk. Should I start to run?  Some people are walking. Others jogging. Eventually I run and stop and then run and then walk behind a slow group. Every time I pass one person I look ahead and see other obstacles. I can go around them either left or right. And children everywhere.

We are now officially  running. Me and the crowd. Now to avoid people. I need to avoid bumping or falling. I need to avoid people who veer suddenly. Why did she do that? And I’ve got to get away from this pram. And puddles appear. Need to avoid them as well. And the footpath is slippery. And uneven. Road or footpath. What should I take? I jump between the two. And then back.

This fun run has to start to open up. It has to become easier. As I am thinking this, the second lap starts, and it suddenly becomes easier. I start to run smoothly. I have some open space around me. Around me everybody is in a routine. Nobody is relentlessly lapping others or being passed by everybody. Everybody is staying in their position and running. Now I can try and start running. To think about my running. To forget about slipping, bumping and falling. My legs are working. My arms are pumping. My lungs are breathing. It’s all working. I start to speed up and overtake people.

We approach the finish. A marshal says something. I stop and go back to hear what he said. He tells me the route to take. I have just lost twenty seconds. Now I have to finish.

There is no finish line. Just a bump in the road which might be talking to my timing chip. Nobody to say anything. I look around and see Melissa and Bradley. Melissa tells me to walk through that crowd over there and pick up my medallion. I approach the crowd and a lady miraculously sees me and gives me a medallion.   I look for a clock. Nothing. Ah well I will find out my time on the website.

Ignoring my time did I have a god run? Well yes. I’m alive. I can put one leg in front of another.  I can still run. That’s positive. And on the negative side. My time will be worse than anything I have done previously. At the start I was not fluid. I stuttered and stammered. And the result. I will do the same again. Another fun run. But next time I want to push myself. To try and approach my limits. To find something out about myself physically. 

I ask Melissa and Bradley about Lorna. They tell me where we should stand to see her.  We stand and then she appears and now we are all finished. Nothing is happening so we go. And Melissa tells us the bad news.

“I couldn’t get a coffee. They would only accept cash.”

Chapter 39 : Retired : not tired

I haven’t worked for ten months and I can now say, “I am retired.” Not proudly, sorta of softly.

I am starting to think like a retired[1] person, not an infirm person forced by medical issues to stop working. What does that mean?

It means the appointments with doctors have dried up. They have lost interest in me. My appointment book is devoid of appointments to visit and discuss my health with people who don’t care about me and people I care passionately about. Day after day of nothing planned. No visits to doctors or hospitals or physiotherapists or psychologists or pathology labs or radiology departments or ….

So I am no longer sick. Or ill. Well what am I? The answer would be, “I am retired”.

Well what is that like? What is it like to be retired?  What does this stage involve?

Well it is a common experience. I personally know many people who have retired. I can say it is never the way expected. Everybody thinks about it before it arrives.  Everybody has a tentative plan.  When it actually happens it is never the way it was envisioned. Your life will change in unexpected and unpredicted ways.  It will be different. To the people heading towards retirement I say, “Keep an open mind. Stay flexible. Welcome change. Change is not good or bad.”

In retirement what have I found? I have found a lack of purpose or a lack of meaning.  I have found that I need goals. Something to aim for. My work used to supply me with all these goals. Give me something to think about. Something to contemplate. That’s now gone. Now I have to invent or make up and tell myself my goals. I then have to write them down.

Before writing down my goals I need to work out what my goals are. To do this I need to get to know myself. For so long my personality was related to my work. You couldn’t separate me from my work. I was a dentist.  I need to know myself which means finding out what I am if you take my job away.  I need to find myself and then I can find out my goals.   I have entered a new land. The infinite land. The land that stretches forever in all directions. The land full of limitless possibilities.  To know myself is obviously more difficult and terrifying but also potentially more exciting and wondrous.

In retirement another issue is the lack of rewards for achieving anything. I need to find a way to reward myself for achieving things.  The rewards have to come from myself and they have to relate to my goals and interests.  My main goals/interests have turned out to be physical. Tennis, running, swimming. My rewards have to relate to my goals which have to follow from finding myself.  

Another thing I have found in retirement is a lack of pride/confidence. One day I was owning, running, working in a dental practice in the center of Hobart. The signs outside displayed my name to the world. I had constant daily feedback telling me that I existed. The feedback may have been positive or negative but it all related to what I had done. It was always about me. Now nothing. I now do many things which are un-noticed. Things which don’t result in any feedback. Perhaps my problem is I was so high before. I was in a job where I was unavoidably the one. The boss. Now I am not the one. Other people spend their whole lives where I am now. I just have to get used to it. Stop complaining and get on with it.

  

In retirement another issue is the days of the week change. When working you often have 5 days of work followed by 2 days of weekend rest to get ready for the next week of work.  When retired you cannot divide your week into working days and resting days. Every day is the same. What can I do?

Well I am doing things I do not get paid for. I can define everything I do as neither work nor rest Things unrelated to money. Things I enjoy doing. It is a great feeling to have. I do what I want to.

And I am making myself sound unbelievable selfish. I am a person who only ever does what I want to. How selfish is that? The reality is I do lots of things I would rather not. Things that involve fitting in with other people. Because it’s expected. I like the idea that  every day contains various activities. Some are completely my choice; some are other people’s choices; some involve planning and preparation; some just happen spontaneously. 

Once I did think that when I retired I would do voluntary work. I would join an organization and help people. I can now see that this would have given me goals; a purpose and reaffirmed my worth. It would have constantly told me that I was important and needed. For some reason I see voluntary work as a solution that doesn’t attract me though I am sure I will from time to time do things which could be considered as voluntary work.

And the biggest issue in my retirement. Is deciding when to shave. I can’t get it right. When working I used to shave every day. Now I can’t develop a habit of shaving every day. I only have to shave when I have to. I wait 2/3 days ; the stubble irritates me and then I try to shave. It hurts and is difficult.  Is a beard the solution? I don’t think so. It would change my appearance and irritate me.

And now whenever I see someone with a few days growth, I know. I know he is either pretending to be Yasser Arafat or he is retired and doesn’t know when to shave.

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[1] I don’t like the word retired. It suggests that work is my life and that I had period studying, preparing for work and a period after work when I am not working. I prefer to say I have now entered the next period of my life. It is not inferior to working. It is different. It is the third/fourth stage of life. It is not more important or less important than other stages. It is just different. In this post I have from time to time used the word retired. I do not like using the word but people understand it and at times it is easy to just use the word.