Retired but still tired

 Tuesday, April 20, 2026

I'm retired. Well, technically I'm just unemployed since I'm not getting a retirement pension and haven't started filing for  my social security check. So I'm just at home without a job. For almost 2 months now.

First, it's great. I don't miss giving up 20 hours of my life a week that made me feel awful and guilty about why my house looked so bad.

Secondly, I'm surprisingly tired and unmotivated. Is this normal? That I just want to sleep and eat? The first week I bustled around but wore myself out so I'm trying to pace myself more. My body hasn't felt any real relief except I haven't felt tired because I can just nap and sleep when I want. That's heaven.

The last week or so I've suffered from a terrible sciatica-type pain down my right buttock, sit bone and thigh. Its not much during the day, but it wakes me up at night and doesn't let up for hours. Fun times no matter whether I'm working on not.

The weirdest part is that if I don't have a doctor's appt or somesuch, I wake up every day with no idea of what to do. I can do whatever I want - in reason with my defunct body - but I don't know what I want to do. That I can still do. 

Went off my antidepressant Buproprion a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to actually feel something again. I'll go back on it when the seasonal depression starts this fall. For now, I'm feeling a little more like myself, like the fog has lifted - but I've also really struggled not to put the pounds back on again. I guess it really was helping with that because combined with the semaglutide, food just tasted like cardboard. Now I can taste most of it again :)

Anyway, I was up at 4am with the leg pain, but napped again from 7-10am and now it's 1:30pm and I haven't done anything but scroll, read and eat breakfast. So many things to do and I am just aimless. I was using the Flylady app the first couple of weeks and that helped, so I guess I have to force myself to start using it again. 

My biggest hurdle right now is that I don't have to HAVE to do anything ever again. I'm so tired and HAVING to do things I don't want to do. 

So right now, I want to sit and read and eat. And maybe do art, because I want to WANT to do it again. It's there but dormant. I'm hoping.