Doing What You Have To Do

I just wrote an e-mail to my sister-in-law telling her about removing my husband's arbor in the backyard and saying how guilty I felt in doing it. It feels as though I'm removing a part of his memory. She wrote back and told me not to feel guilty because we do what we have to do and life does go on.

I thought about that expression...doing what we have to do...and realized we spend most of our lives doing just that. We don't really want to get up in the early morning to go to school or to work but we do it because we have to in order to live a decent life.

I didn't want to get married at 17 but I did it because I had to in order to build a family for my baby. I didn't want to stop having the fun of a teenager but I did it because I had to show more responsibility to my husband and child.

Over the years you do many things because you have to...attend boring functions, tolerate nasty people, change poopy diapers, put up with uncompromising spouses, etc., etc., etc. Somehow, when you've become old enough to retire, you've earned the right to stop doing a lot of those things.

I pretty well do what I want to now. I prefer to stay home and play on the computer than go to a boring function! I hang out with the people I'm comfortable with and who always make me laugh. Rude and nasty people have no place in my life. I still do housework because I have to, though. That chore can't be ignored. The grandchildren are long out of diapers but there's a greatgrandchild in the future. Life does go on.

Yes, you do what you have to and then you rest.