After six months of zero earned income, and five years of not having regular working hours, I have a one-week regular-hours temp assignment in a one-surgeon office. My tax withholding choice is basically, Send it in, but even so I may net a few hundred dollars. I feel unexpectedly valuable.

I’m also discombobulated, and this isn’t even a full-time job. Having to be somewhere at 8:00 AM destroys my exercise schedule and simultaneously imposes schedules on things I have been doing at whim, from grocery shopping and laundry to reading and music.

I can hear all your tiny violins.

Daily paid work is what most adults do. My husband has done it for years, as did I. I’ve even missed some of it: workplace camaraderie, topical expertise, tangible accomplishment, and a regular paycheck. Working is a bit like riding a bicycle. Even after three days, several folks at the surgery center know my name, and I’ve been able to assist patients through logistic hoops required for access to health care.

Paid is the key term. One of the most complicated–and successful–things I’ve done is to implement our decision to move from Boston to Santa Cruz. My husband did a lot of that as well, but he would be the first to say I took point on it. Preparing and selling our home of 26 years; finding and purchasing another 3000 miles away;  sorting our possessions among our sons, ourselves, and various charities; and moving our possessions and ourselves was an enormous undertaking, much of it crammed into four months. We had personal constraints to minimize discards, significantly reduce our living space, and ameliorate the tax burden, as well as schedule constraints. I thought about putting some of this on my resume, but to what end? No wages means not worth mentioning.

The effort did pay off, though. Today after work I walked to the ocean with my binoculars, and after about fifteen minutes spied a whale spouting and flipping its tail. I’ll take that over Snow White any day.