Is This How It Looks?

Is this what retirement looks like? Is this how it goes?

I got up this morning at 9:30 AM, desperately wishing the sun would not rise, would not glare in my window or heat the room to where I had to throw back the covers just to stop the sweat from beading and clinging to me, making the sheets sticky and making me feel the same. I got up and used my arms to fling my useless legs over the edge of the bed. Then, I put on "leisure pants". These are basically fancy pajama bottoms, the ones kids nowadays seem to think are suitable day wear. I pulled on a shirt that was sitting beside my bed.

A shower is definitely in my future today. I need one after the super-heating I got while trying to outlast the sunshine in my window. Clothing of a more suitable fashion is also in the plan, sometime today. For now I sit in these most casual of garments, drinking my morning latte and wondering about my day.

Is that how it will be? Will I get up each day with one or two small tasks on my list, then wonder about what else to do? My life has always been a busy one, filled with much to accomplish, a long list of assignments and goals. Today my most significant goal is getting into, and out of, the shower. I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my day.

Were I physically capable, I could come up with a great many things to do. It's a wonderful day for a golf game, but I cannot walk. It might be time to check out the local lakes for fishing, but I cannot get my wheelchair to the lake shore. I am thinking I might go for a drive, perhaps to the hoodoo's of Drumheller, but I don't want to go alone.

Will tomorrow be like this too? Will this pointlessness continue? This is part of the reason I went for the road trip right after leaving my work. I knew I would need a focus, a goal each day. At least with the road trip I would wake up each morning with an assignment - get up, get dressed, drive somewhere. Travel fills the day, so I don't have to sit and think about ALS.

So there you go. I have been home for a week and now I want to go away again. Maybe that's how it should look.