I’m a weaver of dreams.
I’m a writer.
I’m a published author.
I’m a blogger.
I’m a senior citizen.
I’m a former city real estate manager.
I’m a curriculum developer.
I’m a Sloan Award winner.
I’m a middle-class woman who was under-employed.
I’m a teacher without a classroom.
I’m a Black lesbian working in a world of white straights.
I’m a history buff.
I’m an observer of human nature.
I’m the daughter of a college professor and a medical doctor.
I’m the sister of a college professor.
I’m the sister of a copywriter for the Akron Beacon Journal classified ads.
I’m the sister of a church elder/deacon in New Mexico.
I’m a mother of an adult child.
I’m a School of Visual Arts Alumni.
I’m a College of New Rochelle Alumni.
I’m a Baruch Alumni.
I’m also a member of AARP, Triangle Publishers, Harlem Alliance, The Studio Museum of Harlem, and the NYPL’s Schomburg Research Center.
I’m a DC37 Union member.
I’m also a member of The National Writers Union (NWU).
I’m an Amazon reviewer and forum member.
I have an author’s page on Amazon, Author’s Den, and Smashwords.
I’m on Twitter, Linked-in, Facebook, and Goodreads.
The above list of affiliations was supposed to make me more marketable in 2008. It was also meant to help me design a marketing plan for Mr. Jefferson’s Piano & Other Central Harlem Stories, well as any other memoirs or non-fiction books I decided to write. I was to network with the organizations on the list. I wish I could say I became a bestseller by sending everybody on this list and other lists I compiled press releases, ARCs, and sample chapters. I didn’t become bestseller.
Flash forward eight years. As I read through the list, I had to wonder how much of the list still applied to me. Who I was now that I’d retired from a city job I’d held for forty years? I know it sounds strange, but at 68, I’m trying to figure out who I am.
I was surprised how much having a job centers you and grounds you almost as much having children does. I built my life around my job as a real property manager working for the city. For example, I couldn’t take winter vacations because of the heating season. That was our busiest season. Boilers and burners that heated boilers developed leaks or broke down all together because of extended use. Fuel deliveries couldn’t get through because of heavy winter storms and record snowfalls. Unheated or under-heated basements froze pipes or caused pipes to burst due to water expansion. Locked basements and supers were nowhere around to unlock them for emergency fuel deliveries. Heating season was the worst nightmare for most real property managers who worked for the city. I was always afraid somebody in one of the buildings I managed would freeze to death and I’d be fired as the scapegoat.
Retired now, I had no such worries. I wasn’t responsible for anybody but myself. I missed the power of being responsible for others. I missed the comradery that “we are all in this leaky boat together” produced between me and my fellow real property managers. I missed rescuing failing buildings and retraining bad supers. I missed creating training classes to teach the public how take care of their living spaces. I missed creating training classes for the next generation of supers. I missed watching people learn new things, then apply them in their everyday lives. I never thought I’d say this but I missed my old job. I needed to find something else to replace the excitement I used to feel every time I set foot in my site office.
Before I decided to retire and leave my old job, I thought about what to do a great deal. I knew I couldn’t sit at home watching court TV or reality shows all day. Could I really listen to the rather empty and thoughtless early morning talking heads? Then there were movies, art shows, and museums I’d been meaning to see or visit but never had the time before. I had some hobbies I might take up again too. I used to be a decent tailor. I also used to create these weird paintings. But I hadn’t done any of that in twenty or thirty years. Those hobbies just didn’t hold the same excitement as managing buildings and improving people’s lives did.
How about the friends I had? I could visit them, right? I still had family living several different states too. I could make road tripping my thing and go visit them. I could see my grandbaby for the first time, couldn’t I? Ah, then my car fell apart. I couldn’t fly because I hated tight spaces. I couldn’t rent a car because of my finances. That derailed my road trip mission for the moment.
I thought, well, I don’t have anybody in my life. Maybe I should try online dating. That should be a good way to keep me busy, right? Why did I think dating was a good idea when the rest of my life was in a wait and see mode? For a rapid New York minute, I dated a woman I’d found online who turned out to be somebody one of my used-to-be friends knew too. Our relationship lasted for three interesting, sometimes confusing, but mostly frustrating months before I stopped the madness. I broke up with her. I didn’t think I could do that or her for the rest of my retirement years.
I needed to fill my retirement life with that magical something just as I had in my work life. I went back online and looked at volunteer opportunities. Nothing clicked in my head or my heart, but I signed up for a few agencies anyway. For reasons too personal, the volunteering thingy didn’t work out. Through it all, I was doing the one thing that brought me pleasure. I was writing and publishing romance novels with Black women as the main protagonists. Will that be enough to keep me busy and occupied? Who knows, because I surely don’t? What I do know is how much I enjoy doing the research for my novels. I love learning new things I can put in them. I listen to conversations as I stand in the grocery line or the wait line at the post office or the department stores where I shop. I watch kids playing in the park across the street from where I live. I watch dog owners walking with their pets. Sometimes, I just sit on the benches at the bus stop and people watch for several hours. I never know what I’ll see, but I’m sure most of it will end up in one of novels.
Am I happy in retirement? Ask me in five years, ten years, fifteen years, and twenty years from now and I’ll tell you.
Thanks for reading.
BL Wilson
My blog: https://wilsonbluez.com/
Facebook Business page: https://www.facebook.com/patchworkbluezpress
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1BDmrjJ
Linked-in: http://linkd.in/1ui0iRu
Twitter: http://bit.ly/11fAPxR
Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/1y7Ncar
Smashwords profile page: http://bit.ly/1sUKQYP
Smashwords Author Page: http://bit.ly/1tY3e27
Lesbian Authors Guild: http://lesbianauthorsguild.com
IAN author web page: http://bit.ly/11bhtdz
Ask David: http://askdavid.com/books/10892
