Maybe it’s because the gardens are in and coming up and the yard is that rich beautiful green, reserved for those few minutes each season when it is getting just the right amount of water and warmth, that I find myself wondering if it’s time to stop.

To stop doing anything else.

My sister, Melissa, and I were talking today. And I heard myself saying I thought maybe I was ready to hang the ‘Closed’ sign in the shop window. Ready to truly be retired. To only write for pleasure. To only set an alarm if I have to catch a flight (which is NOT going to happen any time soon because I am refusing to fly at the moment). To, once and for all, cut that final tie to my work as a hospital chaplain, bereavement counselor and officiator of weddings and funerals.

I’ve been walking this particular tight rope for about two years. Using a variety of ‘excuses’ or reasons for not being fully retired. “I love what I do” being the most used excuse.

But I feel tired often. I feel resentment when I say “Yes” to something and then realize it’s going to feel a lot like work.

When we know how to do something not everyone else knows how to do, or when we have the necessary equipment for a task that not everyone has, how can we deny it to someone who needs it? Especially when we ourselves have sometimes been the benefactor at the other end of the equation. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Help our fellow man? Offer a hand to someone in need? Pay forward what we’ve been blessed with?

Well, yes. I believe it is.

And yet, I have this nagging feeling that I want to know what it feels like to ‘do’ nothing. Or to at least only do what I want to do. And recently I am not really wanting to do a lot of the things I see written on my day-timer.

It’s a conundrum.

I think I told a friend once that it was a good thing I have Greg and Toby because otherwise I’d want to work all the time. I loved my ‘work’ that much. But I love them more. And right now, I do have them. And it feels foolish to think they will always be here or that I will always be here. And I want to know this time in our lives together. I want to explore life with this amazing human I’ve been married to for 30+ years.

Yesterday, our friend Stephen gifted us with a ‘first’. He spent 6 hours as our guide traversing a 16 mile loop on a private ranch in western Colorado. Riding in two gnarly rugged machines we saw views we’ve never seen before.

The loop, was one he has ridden dozens of times in the 7 years he’s worked this ranch but every inch of it was new to Greg and Toby and I. We stopped often, killed the engines and just listened to the sounds of being as far away from civilization as one can get in this piece of our country. The birds. The bees. The hummers. But, mostly the sounds of wind in trees and silence.

I rode shotgun with Steve and Greg followed in the other machine with another friend who had never been up there. What I knew, was that this time, well, it was Stephen’s first without his sweet, beautiful wife. Carol. The whole day held incredibly meaningful memories for Stephen. Memories of his life with Carol.

Being in the high country, riding shotgun with Steve and their dog, was one of Carol’s favorite places to be. And they didn’t get enough time doing it.

So, maybe it’s not just the gardens and the grass. Maybe, it’s also paying attention to another persons aching heart. Watching tears well up when we’d cut the engine at one of their favorite spots or when we’d walk to an outcropping where the Earth fell away beneath us revealing 360 degree views of mountain ranges and valleys. Watching him eat his lunch in the quaking Aspens and seeing on his face some memory of having had a meal in that same spot with Carol.

We will celebrate Carol’s life in 13 days. And I will officiate.

And nothing about it will feel like work.