Perspective

If I should live so long as to be retired, I can't wait to indulge my circadian rhythm and read into the wee hours and sleep while it's sunny. Before we had children, Saturdays would find me rolling out of bed around noon while my husband had meanwhile changed the oil, gone jogging, tinkered with various non-working chainsaws and VCRs he found around town on garbage day, climbed Mount Everest. The sad part of his creepy morning energy is that it was usually directed toward totally non-essential household projects. When we moved into our first house, a 1940s Cape Cod in need of rather a total face lift inside and out, the first thing Dean did was take down the basketball backboard and meticulously prime, tape, and spray paint it. Mind you I have never in our ten years of acquaintance seen him express even the slightest interest in playing basketball, nor did I ever once see him mar its pristine whiteness by throwing an actual ball toward it.
I hope my retirement is full of not only sleep, but many leisurely baths. Without slippery seven-month-olds. Without three-year-olds using all your expensive conditioner to wash their plastic dolphins. Without someone peeing in the water. Or worse.
I used to spend some good productive hours in the bathtub. Practically all of my medical knowledge was acquired in the bathtub. I studied for hours, perfecting handling books and notes without dampening them, adding hot water every twenty minutes, eating large piles of Hershey Kisses.
The sad part is that when I am old, gray, wrinkled, well-rested, and reclining in my bubble bath, I will be thinking how delightful it would be to have a tub full of baby girls again.