Can I blame COVID?
Or are the changes in my life just a reflection of the passage of time?
The other day I was reflecting on how quiet and relatively insular my life has become in these first early months of retirement.
I can go days at a time without leaving the house, and I often note a low level anxiety surrounding my when I do go out. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere, and usually, I’m not.
Back in the day (that is, 2018), I was a very busy professional woman juggling several consulting clients at any one time. On top of that, I did my best to be a good partner and a good friend, volunteered, and generally lived a very full life.
I didn’t think twice about hopping onto an airplane for a short visit to another province to fulfill a client’s needs. I drove two hours to a nearby city to facilitate a meeting, then back home the same day.
My calendar was colour coded, chock-a-block, booked months into the future.
And then COVID came, and the world changed.
Life became a blur of lock-downs, masks, and daily health officer briefings at the height of the pandemic. I switched my in-person facilitation events…