Post #3309: Rest and retirement

I’ve been sick with a cold since mid-week. Brian brought it home from Ottawa on Sunday, and by Wednesday the tell-tale signs—sore throat, exhaustion—were upon me. I still had to work yesterday even though I wasn’t really fit to; my manager’s mom died a few weeks ago and I’ve been in charge since then. There were too many things to attend to, and since I work from home I managed a nap in the middle of the day to keep myself going. But I was resentful anyway—resentful that I had to work when all I wanted to do was lie down and rest. As soon as I signed off for the day, I slept a solid two hours on the couch before dinner (toast and avocado).

Today is my flex Friday so I am off work, and on the couch with laptop and books – a motherlode of which came in for me at the library this week, so I am well stocked. I am the level of sick in which there is the secret pleasure in the excuse to “do nothing”. Not so sick as to be incapacitated, but sick enough that no one will expect anything from me. Plus, I’m pretty sure I’m still contagious so it’s best I don’t interact with the world right now. I recognize my privilege in having no one to look after, and having a warm and clean home in which to loiter away these hours of sniffles—it allows me to actually take care of myself which is something a lot of us never get to do.

Something else a lot of folks never get to do, is retire from working life – something on my mind this week since I’ve received my official letter indicating my eligibility to retire early – even earlier than I had planned. (Two to three years from now was my retirement date). My employer, the federal government, who I have reported to dutifully since I was 25 years old (but first started working for as a student when I was only 23) has devised a plan aimed exactly at people in my situation—between 50 and 55 with a significant amount of pensionable year – in an attempt to move us out of the workforce and thus forestall layoffs for younger workers. Under this plan, the details of which are emerging slowly—I would be able to retire in less than a year without incurring any financial penalty (we are penalized 5% per year of retiring before 55 and 30 years of service, this plan eliminates that). That means retirement when I am only 53, about 18 months ahead of schedule, and being able to collect my full pension immediately upon that date.

Of course I plan to apply for approval to do this program—I have a big life outside of work that I’ve been that I’ve been itching to spend more time in for most of my working years. But I also find this opportunity arriving while I am still young enough to be at the apex of my career and at the beginnings of a multi-year project I would like to complete. Life being what it is, the timing feels a bit off even as I wonder that maybe this is exactly when the shift is meant to happen. For while I know I am valued and I currently get to select the projects I work on, I also know that layoffs and organizational change are happening all around me right now – and it could very quickly become the case that work is miserable again and I am counting the hours to leaving. Perhaps doing all the planning for a big project, but then leaving as the execution of it begins is *exactly* what I need to do – before the urgency and troubleshooting of said project is upon me.

Because one thing is true: even though I’m young to be retiring, a lifetime of work has left me depleted. Sitting in front of screens, troubleshooting, writing and editing, project managing—these activities drain my creative life, and even in the very short stints I take for vacation, I notice how much more creative output I’m capable of. In my entire working life—since I was 15 years old—I’ve never taken more than two weeks off at a time. I never took a gap year or months to travel overseas, never took a sabbatical in which to find myself. And when I think about that, I get very exhausted indeed—the sheer amount of bullshit one has to push through in a lifetime of getting up and going to work every day, and the amount of life one must push to the side to accommodate that work, is staggering.

My need for a nap has arrived again, so I’m not sure I can finish these thoughts cogently except to say – may we find a way to a world in which all of us can toil less and rest more.