Recovery

“How’s early retirement life?”

“Are you ecstatic?”

“You must feel so relieved!”

It’s a conundrum. I know I should be ecstatic. But somehow, I’ve been something other than that. I’ve been…recovering…for about 10 months now.

You see, almost exactly a year ago, an enormous gift arrived in my work email inbox. It was an offer to leave the firm in exchange for a financial cushion to help ease the exit. It was an actual dream come true. An offer I could not refuse. [Insert Don Corleone head tilt and scratch of the face].

What’s more, when that email arrived, I was prepared for change. I’d been stalking Fulfillment and Purpose for most of my work life, but in this last decade, I had focused my attention on something promising, a way in which I wanted to serve. I’d pursued my life coaching certification, practiced and studied and connected in a real way to this thing that deeply mattered to me. In those last few months of employment, I’d even hired a coach to help me figure out how to make my parallel lines – fulfillment and livelihood – come together. I felt ready. Done. Motivated.

And yet, when the email arrived, I heard a few unexpected voices in my head.

The first one said, “Holy shit, you’re a witch.” This was not only because the announcement was unanticipated and magnificent, but because I had worked on and finalized my coaching purpose statement the very night before. I had avoided creating a purpose statement for years but finally, my coach had convinced me that clarity of purpose was essential, not only for myself but for my networking efforts. She was right. And so I’d sat down with it for a few hours and had  miraculously found the words, loving them so well that I’d printed them out and made them my screensaver. My purpose statement. The very night before. I kid you not. It was bananas.

The second voice as I read the announcement said, “Ouch-ah.” The message explained that this offer was available to me because my age and years at the firm added up to more than 70 years. I was 55 years of age and had spent 21 of them at the firm.

Frankly, those numbers took a while to digest.

To be clear, the gig was supposed to be a stint. A stopover while I figured out where I really wanted to be. Two decades earlier, a dear friend had recommended me to an administrative position and, while I’d balk for months at the prospect of working in finance (it was not even remotely my thing), I’d eventually interview and be hired. I simply needed to work. I knew I would make the best of it, but the expression on my employee I.D. badge is uncharacteristically joyless. “Oh my God,” my work buddies often said, “You look so pissed in that picture!” It seems impossible, but you can hold gratitude and dread in your heart at the same time.

So yes, the stint turned into two decades, and it’s impossible to look at that number and not pause for a moment. And in pausing, I find that I grieve the days and years behind me.

I don’t want to grieve. I want to feel only the uplifting parts. The parts where coworkers connected with my newsletters and ridiculous morning emails and company blog posts. The parts where I got to mentor and coach my peers. The parts where I made lifetime bonds and friendships. The parts – both wonderful and awful – that I know have served me as a coach and will serve my clients. It seems impossible, but you can also hold joy and grief in your heart at the same time.

So if you ask me how “early retirement life” is, I’d like to say I’m “drinkin’ Margaritas by the sea, mamacita” [insert Thelma & Louise southern drawl], but in reality, I’m recovering. In reality, life as a Corporate America Cubicle Jockey has been a bit rough on me. My body is coming back from years of sitting in commutes and at a screen. My mind is clearing from many of the Sisyphean tasks behind me. My heart is embracing those last few months, which delivered a few hard lessons in self-worth, forgiveness, and forging your own meaning.

I feel the burden of it all lifting a bit these days. Maybe it’s the spring weather. Or maybe it’s the words of a coaching colleague I just met. She tells me that she felt the same way after she stepped away from her corporate job.

“How long has it been for you,” she asked. I counted the months since my last day of employment, arriving at the number six.

“Oh, you need at least four or five more months.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Vindication.

A full year without work is not what I’m planning on. It’s time to come back. But as I think of my muses, Fulfilment and Purpose, I feel that maybe by very virtue of the fact that I’m here, writing this for you, they may be within reach.

And that would mean that maybe, I’m almost recovered.