Today’s the first day of the rest of my life. And I think I kind of squandered it. See, I was packaged out of my job, and maybe my career, last week. After 33 years of working, it’s all good, and exactly what I wanted. So today was it — the first day to make something new of myself. That didn’t happen.

I’m not used to this much unstructured, unplanned-for time. I took a two-hour walk, cooked breakfast, answered some random emails, turned down a job offer. And it was 11:45 a.m.

I went to lunch with a friend, cleaned out my closet and gave away a bunch of work clothes, checked for email (none), mailed a birthday card. It was 4 p.m.

Big sigh. Is this how it goes? Watching the clock and simultaneously wondering where the time has gone and why it’s moving so slowly?

This is going to take some getting used to.