I was struck this week by how relevant to my well-being is the on-going theme of being in control of my retirement life. The notion of being in control of my retirement has been a constant throughout these retirement blogs. Whether I’ve got worse after 6 years retired, I couldn’t say. Probably.
Sometimes blogs are about my assessment of myself as an out-and-out control freak and, at other times, and in other blogs, just simply musing on the whole concept of being in control (unlike the image above) or, in my case, the opposite – the feeling that I’m at the controls of a speeding juggernaut and life will do what it will, despite any intervention from yours truly. A bit dramatic? Maybe.
Many of these control blogs have related to sport and the foolishness of putting one’s well-being in the hands of 11, 13, 15 etc. men kicking, catching, hitting etc. a ball around. That’s all very straightforward and, to a degree, controllable, simply give up caring about sport and its outcomes. This blog is not, however, about sport and lack of control.
In all these blogs I have never had the revelation I had this morning (a Tuesday as you ask). It’s to do with Mrs Summerhouse and I, our relationship of over 50 years, most of them married and all of them supportive and in reasonable harmony.
And that hasn’t changed despite today’s ‘revelation’. And before I go any further let me admit there is a real danger that I’m not going to come out of this very well but that, as they say, is the cross an author must shoulder. So here we go.
First, the bald facts. I am a stressed person and Mrs SH is not. I have always attributed this difference to simply one of temperament. However, today put a different light on this dichotomy (nice word). The strength of our relationship I think is much based on the fact that we have our different roles within it.
Mrs SH, for example, and this is where it gets tricky, prefers tasks like cooking and shopping. Please understand I’m not for one second suggesting these roles aren’t important. NOT at all. What I realised though is that the success or failure of these tasks is largely within her control. They’re hers to do with what she will. Even, God forbid, not do them at all.
I was looking at my ‘to do’ list this morning and feeling extremely irritated. My jobs – getting the garage roof fixed, the electrics in the garden working, tasks related to the vineyard, trying to get a book published, even the internet part of getting these blogs published (this morning my computer said I had no internet connection), fix Sky box (I actually did this but this made it an exception) – are all dependent for their success on factors beyond my control.
Which is code for ‘other people’. And, as we know, people don’t do what they’re supposed to do. They drive me bonkers. They don’t respond to emails, phone calls, texts, don’t show up for appointments they’d led me to believe they had booked in (like the garage roof man and don’t even start to think about how you get asbestos identified and disposed of – try reading on line and you find one ‘tip’ takes it, another (ours) doesn’t, another will take it if it’s wrapped, some will take a van, others won’t, some need a licence, some don’t. You get the idea).
Now I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say, well change your roles then. You do the cooking and the shopping and let Mrs SH do the other. Well I see what you’re saying, but there’s a problem. I have no interest in cooking and shopping and Mrs SH has no interest in my jobs. Those roles again.
OK, maybe she has a passing interest but if they never got done I don’t think it would bother her a whole lot. Can you sort out the asbestos disposal? Certainly. Three weeks later, nothing and the task is still beyond my control. Does she not get stressed because she’s not bothered or is she not bothered because it (whatever needs doing) doesn’t stress her? Such way does madness lie.
This morning put the whole thing in perspective. Mrs SH entered the room with her coffee and sat down opposite me. That wall is a funny colour, she said looking behind me. This, I recognised as code for, that wall is damp and fixing it should properly be located on your list. I refused to even turn round and look at it. I am not buying into yet another task that will turn out to require somebody who won’t come, to repair it. I’ll just see how long it takes her to do ‘something’ about it.