After leading a roller coaster of a life for 30 years managing a full-time job and a home, my friend retired from service. During her working life she couldn’t even get enough sleep or regular meals. She had tended to neglect her own health.
She told me how the day after retirement, by force of habit she got up early. Only after her eyes fell on the bouquets and gift parcels on the table was she reminded there was no need to hurry.
For a few weeks she enjoyed bed-tea and breakfast at a leisurely pace, an afternoon nap and TV time. For the next two months she engaged herself in phone chats with friends and relatives and shopping, and extended her TV time. But soon, retirement blues set in. To make matters worse, her husband passed away after a year into her retirement. As the days passed, she started feeling her life had no purpose. All family and career responsibilities were over and her sons were settled in foreign countries with their families.
Her other retired colleagues were all engaged with their grand children and helping their immediate families. But she faced the empty nest syndrome. Self-pity, fear of the future, lack of confidence to cope with challenges, and insecurity left her depressed and weak. She suffered frequent bouts of illness. Life became a burden as she had to manage single-handedly her finances, repairs at home and visits to hospitals, while being mindful of her own personal safety and security. While she eventually learnt to manage routine tasks, she found it tough to cope with loneliness and idling. The future looked bleak after her sons informed her about their decision not to come back to India after she decided not to leave India to live with them.
In metropolitan cities friendship with neighbours is a rarity, and we can’t expect frequent phone chats and visits from relatives and friends given their own busy lives. She thought the vacuum in her life could be filled through social contacts and became a member of senior citizens’ and women’s associations, social clubs and a few non-governmental organisations. But soon she came out of them; it was not a fit.
At last she resolved to revive her hobbies, for which she never had time during her working life. She revived her reading habit, taking in not only novels and biographies but also scholarly articles. She listened to quality discussions on various topics telecast on the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha channels and some prime-time panel discussions. These helped enrich her knowledge on various subjects. She soon realised the potential of freelance writing and took baby steps in the field by means of blogging. She wrote on all subjects that drew her attention. Appreciative comments she received encouraged her to send articles to magazines and newspapers. The day her first article was published in a newspaper, she felt as if she was reborn. The 187 e-mails she received for her fifth article in that newspaper gave a sense of achievement and showed her the direction for a new journey. She decided that more reading would help her evolve into a serious writer capable of writing with a certain quality. Reading and writing became her passions.
She often told me writing in a peaceful atmosphere is highly rewarding, especially when we are able to the convert thoughts treasured in some corner of the brain into simple words and reach out to readers and enjoy acceptability by editors. She felt that when articles are based on personal experiences and observations of society’s response to different situations, they come straight from the heart and strike an immediate connect with readers.
Thus, reading and writing helped her reinvent herself. Incentives in the form of appreciative comments, and invitations from few online magazines to contribute to them were morale-boosters.
She told me that when she was left alone, it felt like swimming into the sea. But the new tools helped her stay afloat and eventually reach the shore. Today when her articles get published in magazines and newspapers, I feel she had found a new identity and purpose in life. I have concluded by observing my friend’s path that reading and writing have significant therapeutic value for the mind. They help in graceful and productive aging too.
rameezarasheed@gmail.com
