What really happens to the mind, body and soul when you take your husband's hand and bravely walk off into the Sea Change?
Does your brain go to mush, throw away skin cream, take up nudity, stop shaving, give up wearing a tee shirt at the table, forego cloth napkins?
Recently I had a mirror to hold up for Tom and me. Two Sydney business men of my husband's long acquaintance came to spend a few days with us on our Sea Change hill. One I knew quite well and liked, the other I had never met but Tom gives very accurate thumbnail sketches and to date I had not met one person whose character had fooled him, so I was looking forward to them both arriving. Unfortunately during their visit, Tom was quite ill so I had most of the social interaction. No probs with two such dashing gentlemen of course! Hi Leanne, Hi Jacki! Thank you for ensuring your husbands are such delightful house guests - one even did ironing (who would have thought that cloth covered surf board type thing Tom brought into the family was used for that purpose??).
How can you tell when you ready for a Sea Change in Agnes Water 1770? If you have had two or more of these experiences in the past 12 months, you are ready.
1. You are now too fat to fit into designer suits so you need to retire and wear sloppy beach clothes
2. Your eye sight is getting too dim to apply makeup without your glasses so you need to go somewhere makeup is not worn
3.The hairdresser, the manicurist, the pedicurist and the dog clipper are taking 67% of your salary so you need to go somewhere no one will notice if you have missed an appointment
4.You need to escape the guilt of not having read the latest best sellers, seen the newest release movies nor been to the Opera House for the chamber music concert for three months.
5. One too many spikey haired IT prancers leapt in to your office to impart his latest killing on the penny dreadful stock market whereupon you made a citizen's arrest and demanded he be thrown into irons and denied hair gel for a year (actually by this time you are over due for the Sea Change...)
Of course, when suddenly Folk from The Olden Days are due, the mind twists memories, at least for me. I felt sure no one from Sydney would recognize me because I am now so different. Not just the 10 kilos or the short hair or the brown skin or the beach clothes, but basically I am not who I was. As defined very largely, in my mind, by my professional position i.e. What I Did for a Crust. Now, in my Golden Days, I am the Mistress of my Master, Lady of our Castle on the Hill, the Herb gardener (I want to call myself a herbivore), the mother of Peppie and Coco, the Rose Gardener, a person local friends ring when their computer goes pfffatttt. Of course I am sharing this from my perspective, not the male experience, though for both of us it is true that the Olden Days were far longer ago that the actual 18 months that have passed.
With no twinge of regret, no desire to return for either us, we look upon 'those days' as almost another lifetime ago. And its wonderful to note the friends who stayed in our thoughts and we in theirs when there is nothing to 'make' you stay friends.
Definitely I can feel my brain changing - that steel trap has transmogrified into a pot of putty! And I start to worry about it - then reality bites and I kick back with a good belly laugh. This's retirement kiddo, ENJOY! You did the hard yards already. Values absolutely change. Rain of course takes on a whole new value. Make-up (other than essentials of mascara and lipstick) has no value. Jewellery's only value becomes the amount of love the item represents. Books, even the latest Roger Penrose, gather dust. Sugar cane mulch gains amazing status. But perhaps the greatest change in value is experienced by the castrated tyrant Time. Minutes and hours become meaningless i.e. worthless, and even to an extent. days fall to the same fate. Time takes on a Doppler effect.
Stuff like that - ain't it wunnerful?
So now you know. Living the Sea Change is akin to being gifted a whole new life - beyond your expectations as it allows you to reach beyond your own.
nd liked, the other I had never met but Tom gives very accurate thumbnail sketches and to date I had not met one person whose character had fooled him, so I was looking forward to them both arriving. Unfortunately during their visit, Tom was quite ill so I had most of the social interaction. No probs with two such dashing gentlemen of course! Hi Leanne, Hi Jacki! Thank you for ensuring your husbands are such delightful house guests - one even did ironing (who would have thought that cloth covered surf board type thing Tom brought into the family was used for that purpose??).
then reality bites and I kick back with a good belly laugh. This's retirement kiddo, ENJOY! You did the hard yards already. Values absolutely change. Rain of course takes on a whole new value. Make-up (other than essentials of mascara and lipstick) has no value. Jewellery's only value becomes the amount of love the item represents. Books, even the latest Roger Penrose, gather dust. Sugar cane mulch gains amazing status. But perhaps the greatest change in value is experienced by the castrated tyrant Time. Minutes and hours become meaningless i.e. worthless, and even to an extent. days fall to the same fate. Time takes on a Doppler effect.