Be Retired
Artist Mikael Avatar on beach
Twice I have so far been retired.
The first time after the Paralympics in 1996. I did not have the ability to reload. Train 4 years to the Olympics.
The day I realized that I’m done with the sport. It was when I trained belly in Bollnäs (Sweden) and started to figure out how many times I will see that the stain on the wall before the next Olympics.
It was then 3.5 years left to Sydney 2000. I knew it will never work. I do not have the passion remains.
I have to find something else. I had weight, my life, for athletics and now my wings take me somewhere else.
The second time I retired when I was moving to Thailand in 2009.
Leave everything lecturing and coaching activities in Sweden. It happens that I lecture and coaches still. But not full time and spin around at different hotels.
In the end I took things to the hotel to personalize the room. Own pillow from home, photographs and own art. It was at the end. Tired of hotel rooms. Travel …. And all that meant, moving …
Customers start coming to me, but the body was over … I leave Sweden and pulse began to beat faster in the body.
Free dancing on the beach with clear blue sky … wow … should have done this in 2000 when I was in Thailand first time, by then I was not ready for life here …
Senior me means you leave something behind that engulfed your time. Something that took most of the week to manifest. Most often get income, food, shelter ..
What scares people most about retirement is time that becomes infinite to do something new with.
In Thailand, I see many struggle with the time that is just too much. People between 40 years and up to 60 years with a lot of time. Tend to stress. Must do something, not just sit and walk a bit on the beach.
People over age 60 have a completely different approach. It’s ok to be retired after 60 years and I notice that their whole body language is different than those who are around 50 years ….
At the beginning of my endless time in Thailand, many people pointed out, with some envy my actions. I did not start anything new. The art was already in place. The only thing I have done is to develop the art with all the new free time I had.
This is the text number 3 in Artist Mikael Avatar series, which is published every Saturday or Sunday around 15:00 Thai Time, 10:00 Central European Time and east coast time 04:00.
All sections are collected on my wordpress blog: artistmikaelavatar.wordpress.com