My friend Marie is semi-retired and ambivalent about it.  When she is not teaching, she misses her students and colleagues. She misses the rigor of her schedule…sometimes.

On the other hand, she has come to appreciate little things, things she doesn’t have time for when she is working. At lunch the other day, she told me a few:

• Reading a new novel in the garden with a glass of white wine
• Watching the sunset from her third floor deck
• Making progress on her Italian, thanks to CD’s borrowed from the    library
• Writing catch-up emails to old friends
• Taking all week to read Sunday’s New York Times
• Making a simple dinner for a visiting friend
• Learning how to load a new iPod with her favorite music
• Taking a free thirty-minute course in cell structure online, from The Khan Academy

As a 70-something who still spends more hours in the office than at home, the idea of enjoying the pleasures on my own list is tempting.  Just not tempting enough.

Yet.