roles and head games

After we married, Miriam and I divided up the house tasks pretty much on traditional lines.

I worked for money, Miriam took primary care of the kids, made a little money on the side and did the cooking. We made decisions together, mostly.

That was before I retired and before AD.

The kids are grown now, none live closer than 3 hours away. I cook, but the kitchen belongs to Miriam and I have to make a lot of decisions that WE used to make.

I work now, but I don’t work all the time. Some days I don’t work too much at all. But that good old work ethic guilt kicks in -- regularly.

My studio is comfortable and is equipped well enough and I spend a good bit of time in it, but I am not a great artist and I don’t produce master pieces. Mostly I don’t mind. It is not necessary to be best at much of anything, I am told.

But as time goes on, more and more of what I used to think was very important, does not get done, and what makes it worse is that that is OK -- I think.

Maybe that is OK after all, but guilt still talkes to me sometimes.