You think this is easy? This daily reinventing
that I might catch the driverless
coach and find a seat? The cosmic joke,
another in a humorless series, is that working is
work and not is bliss. A lie of the patent variety.
Remember the New Yorker cartoon?
Failure: the bum on a desert isle.
Success: the man behind a desk.
Failure failed to show the effort
in not showing up. Success is a snap.Get up, get dressed, get going,
do what they say, take home the pay.
Blair said the hardest part was waking up
and hearing the fire bell only there was no fire.
Only there is, Blair, and we are not invited.
Which is the problem. Much as I craved the
blaze that year after motherhood
this is how it is now. My rooms are not my rooms
between eight and six. Dust bunnies
yearn for privacy. The machine itches to answer.
The refrigerator groans: can’t I chill in peace? Let them.
Give me the moans and nervous laughter of
downtown souls who pirouette their papers
in that anxious ballet.
You didn’t retire, you cashed in, they said. So, yes,
right on schedule, I am taking the long walks and
reading the long books that, until the minute I got to them,
sounded like the goal of holies.
So this is how it is to be a senior before the junior is cold.
This is the shrieking beneath the nursing home rocking.
Wait a minute. I wasn’t finished.
[Leave a comment here.]
By Lucia Blinn (Poet and author of Lucia, Passing for Normal and Lucia, Navigating the Night)
ElderChicks 
Oh, how I can relate, Lucia Blinn. When you’ve worked your entire life, your identity and your ego are so bound up in your business, it’s impossible to separate the two. Let’s face it, it’s good to be/feel important… to know that you are respected for what you do. All the volunteering in the world doesn’t quite replace the knowledge that up until the economy tanked and I suddenly found myself retired, I was still capable of bringing in a hefty paycheck as well as any man. You are so right, Lucia… wait a minute. I definitely wasn’t finished.
I love this, Lucia. Having the conversation here is definitely, for me, an expression of “not being finished.”
how right you are …how appropriate the words “not being finished” the stress of widowhood and grown children situations lead me to early retirement at 53 ..and it has worked (14 yrs later) but I am not finished..and enjoy substitute working for school district on call where I can say yes or no …enjoy doing things with the grands and helping dtrs and their career pursuits ..but I am not finished and the home is a shell for sleeping …