I get a pension now
That feels odd!
I keep using the term ‘semi-retirement’ but this is just a term for consciously appraising the tasks and demands that continue to serve me. ‘Retirement’ is a strange country.
I thought I would arrive here with relief, but instead. I have arrived with questions.
Who am I when I am not rushing?
Who am I when my usefulness is quieter?
I am learning that slowing down is not the same as stepping back. It is stepping in – to mornings unrushed, to longer conversations with my husband, to snowdrops pushing through February soil as if to say, WE have always known how to wait.
Waiting has been an important part of my life.
As a doula, I have spent many years waiting. Not passively, but attentively. Watching breath change. Watching a woman sway. Watching the subtle shift in her eyes when she crosses from coping to surrender.
Birth cannot be hurried. You cannot command a cervix to open! You cannot bully a baby into the world (although it often seems that this is the prevailing medical model right now.)
For me…
You wait.
You witness.
You trust the unseen work.
And now, at this point in life, I find myself waiting again but this time for myself.
Sourdough has become my quiet companion in this season of life. A jar of starter on the kitchen counter, alive in ways that are invisible at first glance. You feed it. You leave it. You fold the dough gently, again and again. You wait for the rise. There is no shortcut. No amount of willpower will make fermentation move faster.
The magic is happening long before you can see it.
Birth taught me that.
Bread reminds me of it daily.
In both, there is a moment of doubt. Is anything happening? Has it stalled? Should I interfere?
And then…..the swell of the belly and the audible sound of final surrender.
The rise of the dough against the bowl.
The steady rhythm of something becoming ready.
When a baby is finally placed on their mother’s chest, the waiting dissolves into awe. When you lift the lid on a perfectly risen loaf – blistered crust, deep caramel colour, that hollow knock on the base – the patience feels holy.
New life.
Fresh bread.
Both worth every second of restraint.
Meanwhile, the world beyond my kitchen feels loud and combustible.
We are living through an era shaped by powerful men and the consequences of concentrated power ripple outward daily. Urgency dominates the headlines. Reaction is constant. Everything feels accelerated.
But perhaps not everything meaningful happens at speed.
Perhaps the deeper transformations – in bodies, in dough, in lives – require warmth, safety, and time.
Last November, travelling through Japan, I was struck by reverence for process. Ritual. Attention. The beauty of doing things properly rather than quickly. It felt like a culture that understands that patience is not weakness – it is refinement.
I am beginning to see my ‘semi-retirement’ in the same way. This is not an ending. It is proofing time.
A slower rising.
A deeper flavour developing.
An integration of all the years spent holding space for others.
I still need to serve. That instinct has not left me. But service now feels less like urgency and more like stewardship – of my energy, my marriage, my garden, of my grandchildren as they stretch into young adulthood.
There is a campervan waiting for new roads; Snowdrops insisting on hope; Dough rising quietly on the counter.
If the world insists on shouting, I will answer by tending. And singing. And hoping.
Because I have learned, at birth bedsides and in warm kitchens, that what is allowed to unfold in its own time emerges stronger, fuller, and infinitely more alive.
P.S. Even in this slower season, I still feel called to attend a small number of births each year. If you are preparing to welcome new life or know someone who is and our timing aligns, I would be honoured to stand alongside you. Please don’t be afraid to ask!
