Suddenly, as a retired person, I have room in my head for my own thoughts. I am free to follow this path, then that one as they occur to me, not worrying about my career, achievement or making good impressions on hiring managers or colleagues who desire conformity to their own values. Gradually old tensions and insecurities will sluff off. Lord knows, aging itself is difficult enough.
Now is a new beginning for me. Unfortunately, it is also a dangerous time in the US. Social norms requiring empathy to understand are in danger. The ideal of the US gaining strength from its diversity, offering due process and opportunities and a safety net to people is being destroyed. Basic rights offered by the constitution are currently ignored by the powerful. The facts that rich people can freely treat young people as sexual commodities that can be bought, traded and disposed of according to their whims are being exposed and normalized. By taking away free education, livable wages and forcing women into having children they can not afford, we are well on the way of having three classes: the very rich, the people who serve them and powerless serfs. Good bye to a robust economy and the rule of law and hello to corruption at every level of society.
But there is room in my life. Being a lucky, hard-working person, I have the space to exercise, enjoy fiction, study and write this blog. The only audience is me; I can skip logic steps, if it is clear to me. I can switch directions and subjects. Writing will help me explore my thoughts, allowing them to grow rather than going in circles.