Why Do I Even Get Out of Bed Now?

I get up.

That part hasn’t changed. I’ve never been the lie-there-and-negotiate type. Morning comes, I’m up. No bargaining, no snoozing, no dramatic sighing as if the day has personally offended me.

I like mornings.

Or at least, I used to.

Last summer I would take my coffee out to the porch and watch the sun come up before starting my workday. It felt like getting ahead of things. Quiet, ordered, slightly smug.

Then I’d go inside and do my job.

A real one. The kind someone paid me for. The kind that expected me to show up, even if “showing up” meant walking ten steps to a desk in my own house.

And when that was done—that’s when the good part started.

That’s when I wrote.

Three blogs’ worth, apparently. I didn’t just write them—I thought about them all day. Ideas would line up while I was working, waiting their turn like polite but persistent guests.

I made short videos for Instagram. I set up ads to send people to the blogs. I checked stats like they might personally congratulate me.

It was a system.

Work first. Then the part I actually couldn’t wait to get to.

Now?

Now I get up. I make the coffee. The sun still rises, right on schedule, doing its job without supervision.

Show-off.

But there’s no job waiting inside.

Which means there’s no “after.”

No reward at the end of the day.

Just… the day.

I have tried things.

I would like that officially noted.

I tried gardening.

I want the front garden to look good. Not spectacular. I’m not trying to win awards. Just something that doesn’t look like it has quietly given up.

It has.

And apparently, so have I, because I look at it, think about what I should do, and then go back inside where the coffee is and the expectations are considerably lower.

I tried painting.

I have canvases. I have paints. At one point I even had enthusiasm, which turns out to be the key ingredient and, inconveniently, the only one I’m currently out of stock on.

Everything is there.

Except the part of me that cares.

I tried online classes.

I used to love those. I would buy them on sale like I was preparing for some sort of intellectual emergency.

Knowledge must be gathered. Skills must be acquired. There could be a test.

Now I have a carefully curated collection of good intentions sitting quietly in a folder.

We are no longer in communication.

My sister says I need a hobby.

This appears to be the standard solution.

You retire, you get a hobby. Preferably something wholesome and vaguely productive, so you can discuss it with other people who have also been assigned hobbies.

But here’s the problem.

A hobby requires interest.

And I don’t seem to have any.

It’s not just the hobbies.

It’s the writing.

Which is… inconvenient.

Writing wasn’t something I had to make myself do. It was what I looked forward to after everything else was done. It was the payoff.

Now there is no “after,” and somehow that has taken the writing with it.

I open a document and stare at it like it belongs to someone else.

And reading.

That one bothers me more than I like to admit.

Books were the center of my world for over sixty years. Not a phase. Not a hobby. A constant.

Now I pick one up, read a paragraph, and put it back down like I’ve just remembered something urgent.

I haven’t.

There is nothing urgent.

There is just… nothing pulling me back.

People like to say retirement is a reward.

All that time. All that freedom.

And yes, technically, that is correct.

What no one mentions is what happens when the structure disappears.

When there’s no job to anchor the day.

When there’s no “after” to look forward to.

Just a wide, open stretch of time and the faint expectation that you should be doing something meaningful with it.

I didn’t expect to feel this… unnecessary.

That’s the word that keeps showing up, whether I invite it or not.

When you have a job, there’s a place you’re supposed to be. There are things that don’t get done unless you do them. There’s a structure that says, very clearly, “You matter here.”

Take that away, and no one replaces it.

No one sends a follow-up.

The world simply continues, apparently quite capable of managing without you, which is both impressive and a little rude.

So you start to wonder.

Am I still a functioning member of society?

Am I contributing anything?

Or have I been quietly moved into the category of “people we used to need”?

This is not the brochure version of retirement.

There are no smiling couples on a beach in this part. No one is holding a drink with a tiny umbrella and discussing their busy schedule of leisure.

There is just a person standing in the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee, wondering what exactly counts as a productive day now.

I still get up.

Because that’s what I’ve always done.

Because mornings are still the best part of the day, even if the rest of it feels a little… unassigned.

I watch the sun come up sometimes. Not every day, but enough to confirm it’s still happening without me.

And then I come back inside and look around, as if something might present itself if I give it a minute.

So far, nothing has stepped forward.

But I’m up.

And for now, that seems to be the job.