Lock Down Stress Relievers I retired 10 years ago and time is flying by way too fast now. I'm a retired therapist and I eased into retirement so the change was not too jarring for me. I had a full time, private practice and then, during my final 11 years. I cut my private practice back to 50% and took on a half time contract with Sacramento City College providing mental health services to students. I enjoyed doing both. In my final 2 years I closed my private practice but kept on with my job at SCC.
It was hard for me to leave my work at SCC. I loved working with underprivileged students and all the different cultures, ethnicities and religions that they came from but my wife had retired a year earlier and we wanted to take long trips so I pulled the plug. We immediately left for Peru to travel for 6 weeks with our son who was studying in Lima and that helped me transition nicely into retirement. I still miss doing therapy at times but I also love the freedom we have to travel and enjoy many other things we didn't have time for when we were both working.
My wife and I have settled into what's become a pretty predictable routine each day during the pandemic. We usually have a leisurely, light breakfast and coffee and catch up on email and read the news online. My wife is still devoted to the paper copy of the Bee but I tend to read it online. We also have online subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post. We both read CNN and Politico a lot also. We're both news junkies and, even though all the political stuff and the Covid news can be emotionally draining, we seem to handle it pretty well. We keep ourselves busy with household chores and our hobbies during the day and we watch various series on Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime and Hulu in the evenings. We also take long evening walks after dinner when it isn't too stinking hot!
We have hobbies we enjoy that include reading, gardening and travel for both of us but, of course, travel is out now during the pandemic. She is an excellent pastel artist and a great cook. I have taken up wooden ship modeling, got back into photography, play my guitars at my leisure and started learning to bake bread.
I'm also an avid road cyclist. I took it up 2 years before I retired. Before that I did a lot of rock climbing, backpacking, mountain biking and running. I thought road cycling would be boring compared to mountain biking but I found it has it's own beauty and excitement and it gave me an aerobic activity that was much easier on my knees and back than running was. I bought my dream bike last year and it's a pure joy to ride. I log a ton of miles on the American River Bike Trail but I ride a lot on the road too. I like to ride in the big hills outside of Winters, up in the Amador County foothills and over in the the Napa and Sonoma Valley areas. I have been ticking off some of the big, classic rides in northern California the past couple of years. I figure I need to do them while I can since the clock just keeps on ticking and I enjoy the challenge.
My wife was very regular at going to the gym to workout before everything closed. So I bought some dumbbells and a bench and she works out in the garage now. I need to do weight bearing exercises as well but I'm more motivated to ride my bike. We both miss not having sports to watch or go to and are happy to see the Giants playing even if it is without any fans in the seats.
So for us, enjoying our hobbies and engaging in regular exercise plus keeping in touch with friends and family via texts and zoom calls helps us during these trying times. We try to keep our heads up in the midst of the Covid tragedy and all of the divisive politics by remembering that, although these are tough times, we've got a whole lot to be thankful for...carpe diem...