Cabin Fever Doesn’t Come with Room Service
 

Sorry I’ve been away for a bit!
 

I could blame it on technology – my Microsoft Surface claimed it “could not detect a battery”.  (Which begged the question – if there suddenly was no battery in my notebook, how could there possibly be any power in the system to flash me a “no battery” message.  The nice, young man at the Microsoft store in Square One had no answer for me.)
 

Or I could blame it on February in general. 
 

But the truth of the matter is that sometime after my mid-January birthday, I crashed and burned.
 

I have a low distraction threshold at the best of times, but for six or seven weeks or so (the entire month of February and most of March) I was finding it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the refrigerator and the TV remote. 
 

Any focus, motivation or discipline I did possess was gone. 

I was finding it nearly impossible to muster, let alone focus, any interest at all on any of those projects and activities near and dear to my little retirement heart. 
 

My organizational skills were non-existent.  There were knitting projects (plural), scattered all over the living room. 

There was (a lot of) stuff stacked in little piles on the coffee table. 

There was even unopened mail littering the dining room table. 
 

I simply ceased to be able to function.  Simply getting through the day was becoming a challenge.
 

I experienced a similar situation about two months into retirement.  But that episode was really more of a panic attack.  A sudden and overwhelming realization of the enormity of what I had just done. 

I had just quit my job! 
  

I froze in my tracks for a couple, three days, trying to remember how and why I thought this whole retirement thing was a good idea.
 

And after a few days of breathing heavily into a paper bag, I finally did remember why this whole retirement thing was indeed, a very good idea.
 

But this time, I seemed to have been struck down by a combination of ennui and cabin fever.  A strange combination of restlessness and boredom that literally, took me about six weeks to shake off.
 

Rightly or wrongly, part of the problem may have been the weather – all those friggin’ freezing temperatures in February were enough to suck the life force out of even the strongest soul! 

But freezing temperatures were just an excuse. 
 

The real problem was that I was having difficulty mustering up even a passing interest in two of the most important tenants of retirement – outside contact and activity.
 

Basically – getting out of the house and doing something useful with some other like-minded people!
 

After money, how to plan and maintain daily activity and contact with friends, family and acquaintances are the most important topics that will be discussed at every retirement workshop you will attend and every retirement handbook you will read.  (They should actually take priority over money, but that’s just my opinion.)

Take notes!
 

Because for a few weeks at least, I was having enormous difficulty practicing what I preached.
 

Luckily, I was able to recognize that I really needed to start spending my days doing something other than wishing for a hot fudge sundae to suddenly appear in the refrigerator. 
 

It took some time, though. 
 

Because I really just wanted to sit on the couch and eat that hot fudge sundae.
 

And believe me, I wasted a lot of days standing in front of the refrigerator waiting for it  to appear!
 

The problem is, once your focus, discipline and motivation have been scattered all over the map, it’s more difficult than you think to pull yourself together.
 

It’s sort of like when you were a kid on summer vacation and you told your mother you were bored and her answer was to make you go outside and play.  Same principle.  Only, this time, if you don’t dig deep and find your own focus, motivation and discipline, the consequences will be far more dire.
 

I will not lie.  I struggled.  I made excuses.  It’s so much easier to do nothing that actually get yourself motivated to do something, anything. 

But I persevered.  
 
I really had no alternative.

And thanks to the Mississauga Quilters Guild Annual Show and a cup of tea and a biscuit with friends – I do believe, for better or worse,  I’m back!!!!

The jury is still out on whether or not it's a good thing!