Editor’s note: The IJ is reprinting some of the late Beth Ashley’s columns. This is from 2007.

Funny how quickly one can get used to sloth.

For years, I have prided myself on working hard, getting things done and performing at the best of my ability.

Then, I get in an auto accident and am forced to stop working.

Hoo-ha! Hallelujah!

Hand me another pain pill.

Wow, this is great.

I could get used to doing nothing.

Now the mere suggestion that I’m well enough to haul my body back to the office sets up a wall of denial.

Maybe I should wait a few more days? This downtime is really a treat. I am reading (four books so far). I am gabbing on the telephone with friends. I am napping — and prepared to nap more.

It’s funny how many contradictions we have in our lives.

I love to go out; I love to stay home.

I love public acclaim; I shrink from attention.

I love soft colors; I wear gray and black.

My nephew commented this week that his daughters admire me as “an independent woman.”

Heck! Did I want to be an independent woman? No!

For as far back as I can remember I visualized myself married and taking care of lots of kids. Yes, I wanted a career, but always inside the structure of a family, with a husband and kids front and center.

Sometimes we don’t get the lives we expected.

Sometimes we learn to love things that were not on our agendas.

In the workaday world, I guess I’m identified as a newspaper writer.

In my own mind, I’m a mother and a friend, a person who loves to read, to travel, to talk politics.

Maybe the secret of happiness is to love whatever life hands you.

When my husband died, leaving me with five kids and little money, the future looked pretty grim.

Then, the managing editor at the IJ, where I had worked 15 years before, invited me to rejoin the staff — and I’ve been at the IJ ever since. I hate to tell you how many years that is.

That experience taught me one thing: When one door closes, another one always opens.

When life presents you with lemons, sometimes — with luck — you can make lemonade.

Sometimes you think you are one thing, but — like it or not — you become another.

I had no intention of becoming a malingerer.

But it’s amusing to me how easily I have slid into inactivity.

It has also been comforting because I know that I will retire from the IJ and will be confronted with endless “free time” — and now I know how much fun that will be.

Until now, the idea of joblessness has been scary.

But I’ve discovered the joys of reading the newspaper for two hours every morning, of diddling endlessly on the internet, of writing letters and calling my friends. Who says that isn’t a life, too?

Americans are sometimes criticized for being too work-oriented, too busy, too focused on reaching the top of the heap.

I’m sure I’ve been that way, too, in my lifetime.

But once you’re forced to the wall (or to bed) by a car accident, it’s amazing how quickly you can accommodate.

Being lazy is more fun than I had dreamed.

I love to work. I love to loaf.

I’ll be back at work soon, but for now, I think I’ll take another nap.