Sharing gifts, celebrating time
Christmas is characterized by sharing gifts with each other, in celebration of the great spiritual gift that we received almost 2,000 years ago. And on New Year’s, we usually share memories to reflect on the passage of time.
Both these events are special for the Coping column this week. Today completes 20 years of columns for The Western Producer. It also represents more than 1,000 contacts with people over the years who sent their concerns and questions to me.
Another significant passage of time occurred for me a few days ago. I reached my 60th birthday and am now within six months of leaving my full-time job at the Prince Albert, Sask., Mental Health Clinic. To be honest, I can’t really believe I am 60 years old. I don’t feel it, and I certainly don’t act it.
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I look toward retirement with mixed feelings. I don’t plan to retire. But I do plan to retread. After all, you don’t throw away a tire with worn tread, you just recap it.
Continue work
I intend to continue my column and plan to do part-time work with the local health district, in maintaining my resource materials and with the New Choices For Men program.
Some people have told me that they find themselves busier after they retired than they were when they worked. I hope this doesn’t happen to me. I just don’t know where I’ll find the extra time.
Retiring is a different experience for us all. Many readers are likely retired. I’d be pleased if you would pass on the great and not-so-great aspects of retirement, and your suggestions for those about to retire. I will glean your ideas and use some of them in future columns.
Christmas is also a time for exchanging gifts. Readers have given me the gifts of their ideas for the past 20 years. About seven or eight years ago, I put aside a week of my time, in late winter, and made a road trip, going to such communities as Edam, Biggar, Maple Creek, Moose Jaw and Gravelbourg in Saskatchewan, as well as one town in Alberta.
This coming winter, I am prepared to reserve another week, either in February or March, for such a trip. I am willing to do presentations or workshops on bereavement, communication, depression, anxiety, stress, healthy coping skills, parenting, marriage, separation and spouse abuse.
Willing to visit
If an organization would like me to come, I only ask for a tankful of gas, a bellyful of food and a place to sleep in case I have to stay over. They, of course, will see that people in their community know that I am coming. Presentations can be in the morning, afternoon or evening (or even a couple of them together), as long as I can line up a travel route that allows me to get where I need to safely, on time, and without too many speeding tickets.
