Free Fall

60: (August 2023)

I retired a few weeks ago. I loved my last job and wondered how it would feel to ‘jump off the cliff’ to retirement-land. I needn’t have worried. It feels fantastic. It feels magical, and I feel incredibly grateful to have this sense of freedom. I find myself with tears of joy every now and then because I’m so excited to have whole days stretching out in front of me that I can fill however I want.

Waking up with no agenda, no emails to check, no meetings to attend, nowhere I have to be and nothing I absolutely have to do is spectacular! It’s a deep sense of freedom that I know I am just beginning to taste, just beginning to sink into. I hope I never take it for granted, because I want to hold onto this feeling of joy in facing countless days of blank slates.

I am deeply aware of how fortunate I am to have this gift of time. For the first time in a very long time, I don’t really have a plan for the future other than spending more time with my husband, family, and friends. The big ticket items are behind me, like going to school, having children, and navigating a career. There isn’t a roadmap for this leg of life’s journey, no prescribed route for post-retirement life; it’s basically a free fall. Increased longevity has given that gift of freedom to many of us baby boomers, a luxury that the generations before us didn’t typically get to enjoy.

Doing things strictly for pleasure isn’t something that my practical side has indulged in for much of my life. I have to fight the urge to immediately figure out how to still be ‘productive’ or best contribute to society over the next few decades. I’m trying to allow myself to find a bit of balance, a stretch of time where I can learn how to relax and simply ‘be.’

It’s only been a few weeks, so I’m still in the honeymoon stage, but if this is any indication of the time to come, I’m so happy I made the decision to jump off that cliff. The sense of freedom in gliding through the air is delicious.

40: (August 2003)

My daughters and I just spent a beautiful week in Chincoteague, island home of the legendary pony “Misty,” made famous in Marguerite Henry’s book of that name in 1947. Approximately 50,000 people from all parts of the globe also went to Chincoteague that week. We were there to see pony penning.

Chincoteague is a stone’s throw away from Assateague Island, a national wildlife refuge and home to a herd of wild ponies. Once a year, the ponies are rounded up, penned on Assateague for a few days, and then herded to a point on the channel side of the island where they swim across to Chincoteague. They then parade through the narrow lanes to Main Street, where they are penned at the Volunteer Firefighter’s Carnival. Many of the foals are auctioned the next day. They have followed this procedure for more than 75 years, and from the look of it, not much has changed in that time.

The day before the pony swim, the girls and I visited the pens on Assateague. Two hundred mares, stallions, and foals were eating, sparring, nursing, and napping. The air was thick with the smell of manure, hay, salt, and just plain horse. It was delightful, and we spent hours filling our senses with these beautiful animals.

On the morning of the pony swim, we rose at 5 a.m. to make sure we got a good place on the shore from which to see the ponies; so did the 50,000 other people. We stood in the rain for four solid hours. The actual swim lasted seven minutes. We watched in awe and soaked in the beauty of the ponies swimming across the channel and then charging onto Chincoteague, prancing and eating the sweet grass as they came ashore.

“There’s nothing like the spirit of a horse,” commented one of the saltwater cowboys. I have to agree. I felt a stirring of my own spirit, my own zest for life, as I witnessed those ponies. And I hope the ponies somehow felt the incredible depth of feeling all those wet horse lovers had for them. For seven minutes, thousands of people connected with those animals on a level that went much deeper than the surface splashing. And I know we are all the better for it.

60-40:

The raw spirit exuded by all those thunderous ponies was glorious. A free spirit can be alive no matter what, I suppose, but taking care to create the circumstances which allow it to breathe — to truly fly — certainly helps.

Freedom, in its many forms, is an invaluable treasure, whether for animals or humans. We were all born to fly and spread our wings!

I’m sharing an original song and music video, Born to Fly, that my daughter Molly Ferrill just released, because it captures a celebratory sense of freedom so well. Enjoy!