Risks and Rewards: Marking two years of retirement

Between last week’s loss of the submersible in the Atlantic Ocean and the earlier capsizing of the migrant boat off the shores of Greece, I have been thinking a lot about risks and rewards.

If risk means “a situation in which one is exposed to danger” and reward means “something given in recognition of effort”, I have taken only very low-level risks in my life but have been rewarded with the privilege of security and success. To wit, June 30th marks the end of my second full year of retirement. By now, I am well settled into this next chapter, but making the decision to launch myself into it was a bit fraught. Herewith my reflections on getting myself from there to here.

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“No” the second time is no easier to hear. Possibly it is easier to say, but to hear it a second time is harder. 

Like so many employees, I had turned on a dime when Covid struck and we were sent away from the office to continue our job from home. As a college administrator, this meant juggling multiple virtual balls in the air — lesson plans needed revising; work spaces needed conjuring for colleagues and students alike from kitchen tables and corners of living rooms; daily routines needed reinventing. All while we were collectively trying to understand what was happening in the world. With personal effort and professional pressure, things got sorted and we found our feet — mostly; we should never forget how many students fell between the cracks and how many employees struggled to do their own work from home while simultaneously overseeing their children’s schooling from those cobbled-together study spaces who knows where in the home. 

Mostly, I managed. The ‘new normal’ was lauded for how well it was going — “Isn’t it amazing what we can do over Zoom?” — and a tight camaraderie evolved among my colleagues. We were all in this together, one day at a time…and then those days rolled into weeks and months and then it was more than one year and then working from home was the norm, even the preference.  

But I moved on. In a big way. I moved right out of that work world. 

While Covid was raging, my up-line at work changed and the management position I had been wanting became vacant. Yes! I was ready for that challenge. I applied with confidence. I believed I aced the interview. 

Hearing the results took some time (blame Covid), and then the day arrived. 

The meeting was virtual, only our faces showing on the screen. I was taut with anticipation, expecting new responsibilities, harder work, more opportunities. I was expecting a yes. Hoping for congratulations and jubilation. But, no. It was a hard no. “You are not the chosen candidate.” Not the first time and — shocker — not the second time either, eighteen months later when the new boss left the organization.

The first time, the warm early summer sunshine heralded growth, abundance, faith in the natural cycle of things. But my faith was shattered, my growth stunted, career path trampled. The second time, January’s grey weather foretold the tale, though I was blind to it. If that first time I was expecting a yes, then the second time — still during Covid, still on screen — I simply assumed it would be so. Hope springs eternal. Who else could step in, take over, lead as I could? But with just six words, it was no. Again, “You are not the chosen candidate.” 

The first time, I sucked it up and carried on. I liked the new boss, appreciated their approach and worked well with them. 

The second time, I was floored, but I was ready, too. Ready to make my own change. I had been sitting at my cobbled-together work station in the back corner of my living room for enough months to know the upside and the downside of the situation. While the commute was short (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, desk), the expectations were growing in the form of longer days, more meetings, faster turnaround times — “Isn’t it amazing what we can do over Zoom?” — not enough of them balanced by what we used to also have in a workday: fun. 

However, as a 61-year-old, I had an ace up my sleeve: Retirement. It had been in my sights for a while, but I loved working in education and had not been planning to leave for a while yet. Covid changed that. As the pandemic continued to introduce stresses and fears into the world generally and my world specifically, I began to rethink my priorities and reshape my plans. 

Did I really want to continue sitting in the back corner of the living room while my partner and my mother grew older with each passing day and with me unable to spend significant time with either of them? Was my job really essential to my life or could I seriously consider funding my life from my planned retirement income streams of pensions and savings? 

It turns out I could, so I plotted and planned and prepared, and, in my own way, said NO: No to the absurdity of more work than satisfaction, more politics than courage, and more busyness than impact.

I had learned so much through teaching students, experienced so much joy in their learning. It was time now to heed my own learning, to take the chance, to make the leap. Back into my own life where my play is my work and my writing mirrors my courage. Those two NOs  catapulted me into my next chapter, my third act. Today, my creative 60+ spirit is rooting deep in the days of my own doing. 

Today, I sit outside the 9-to-5 job world, though I continue to work, now as a community educator, facilitating courses and workshops of my own design. Though my income is less, my work satisfaction is greater. While I am grateful for the opportunities I had in the trenches of employment, my life today in the gently rolling meadow of self-initiated work is all the sweeter for its slower pace and richer personal rewards. 

They say that lightning doesn’t strike twice. Maybe so. But, for me, one NO, then a second, struck deep within me. And I am glad of the growth that, together, they spurred.

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Note: An earlier version of this piece is one of the two rejections I wrote about here. My revisions to it were prompted by feedback I received from my writing pals Anna-Maria, Cindy and Leslie; I thank them for their helpful comments.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.