Growing older, I find, has made me smarter.

Oh, I don't mean that I can calculate a restaurant tip any better or know how to program the electronic gizmos that come with household appliances. If those were the standards for determining one's intelligence, most 9-year-olds would outshine me.

My emerging "smartness" is different from that — less measurable, yet infinitely more satisfying: After decades of doing what I am supposed to do, I'm finally learning to do what I want to do.

It is Saturday morning and I am at the local library, where I like to come most Saturdays after a busy week at work. I've been here three hours now, writing on my laptop, reading David McCullough's "1776," and perusing the library stacks for my next book.

At home, my bed is unmade, the toilets need cleaning and I haven't done laundry in a week. Yet here I am, relaxing, "playing" while there is work to be done — something that runs contrary to my nature.

"It's OK to slow down and relax," I tell myself each week as I head to the library, a practice that I began more than a year ago. "Those household tasks will be there when you get back."

Like most working women, my weekdays are very busy. They involve long hours and a lengthy commute — Mondays through Fridays are spent driving and working and then driving some more. Arriving home well after dark, I fix dinner and get ready for the next day. My only relaxation, if I'm lucky, is channel surfing for a few minutes or reading a page from my book before drifting off to sleep.

With busy weekdays, weekends always mean playing catch-up around the house. In a flurry, and furiously, I'd tackle my domestic responsibilities — cleaning, cooking, laundry, paying the bills. If things needed doing, then I was bound to get them done.

Being responsible, acting responsibly, is a tenet that has guided me for decades. Raised in the 1950s, I deeply absorbed the work ethic of my Depression-raised parents (which likely was reinforced by their German/Catholic heritage). To leave a bed unmade was surely a sign of slovenliness. And spending Saturday mornings whimsically runs contrary to productivity.

But now, after decades of always putting work first, I'm getting "smarter," or at least I'm trying to. It's still a struggle to walk away from a stack of dirty dishes, but I'm making progress.

In addition to wiling away hours at the library, I now take long walks on the weekend. On Sunday mornings I sleep in, to seven or eight o'clock, and then take a lingering bath, with expensive bath salts I bought at a getaway weekend with girlfriends in early October. And last Saturday morning, before my regular visit to the library, I met the neighborhood women for breakfast at a local restaurant.

Being smart has its price, though, as my house is often in disarray. But it sure beats all that hard work.

Linda K. Schmitmeyer is a freelance writer living in Middlesex Township. Her e-mail address is lks260@zoominternet.net.