Light ghosted, lit within

It is an early, dark, and cold December-Wednesday morning as I pick this blog up from where I last left it off. As I inch toward retirement and relocation in a few months, I hope to have more time to spend processing out-loud here, for my usual target audience of one.

Retirement is the commute I am making and musing about today.

[Walks in from stage left, toward the small folding card table and chair -center stage- with paper and pen on it. Pulls the chair back and sits down. Picks up pen and starts to write, reading aloud...]

I think the truly difficult part of retiring from a many-years-in-one-place career is that we come to see ourselves, mostly, as the reflection-of-ourselves from a consistent core group of people who surround us on a near-daily basis. A group of people we come to spend as many hours with — and sometimes more — as those we love and hold most dearly. When we walk away from that singularly steady mirror, we can easily lose sight of ourselves. If we measure our value, our existence, by how we're seen, this loss can be paralyzing. Even a well-centered soul will have to adapt to this loss of reflection to some extent.

Lit from within is the sole secure way
to traverse dark matter. Some life forms — 
certain mushrooms, snails, jellyfish, worms — 
glow bioluminescent, and people as well; we
emit infrared light from our most lucent selves.
Our tragedy is we can’t see it. 

We see by reflection. We need biofluorescence
to show our true colors. 

   - Robin Morgan, The Ghost Light

And the process of retiring - the days, weeks, months between the formal declaration, date setting, and finishing out the time remaining - is a gradual fading process. The mirror reflects us less and less with each passing week.

Still called on, still required to show up, still absolutely expected to be working, still absolutely working, but less present nonetheless. When the conversation turns to future things, to planning or discussing the next steps of some project or vision, I fade a little bit more. "You won't have to deal with that!" or "You won't even be here!" become common lines, complete with laugh-track.

In the past I've seen this from the co-worker viewpoint. By the end, you hardly expect them to show up for meetings or workplace events at all. They are all but gone even before they have actually left. Now that I am on the other end of this process, it feels familiar and strange. There are times I want to shout, "Hey, I'm still here, you know! I am still working and contributing!" and yet there are already other times when I want to acknowledge that I'm no longer that invested in something happening six months from now (thinking, "Why am I even sitting in this meeting?").

Of course, this is exactly as it should be, since I won't be here to experience the future whatevers, and have little say in what those who will should or shouldn't do. But it is odd to experience.

We're told we should know when to retire. We're told to have a plan for retirement, or something to retire to. Nobody talks about the actual process of retiring, though. How are you supposed to act while you inch your way toward that publicly announced last day on the job?

Like a poor cell phone connection that cuts in and out, or nodding off while watching television, my participation in workplace conversations comes in and out of focus depending on the topic under consideration. Getting the budgeting process for the new year under way - check. Overseeing progress on goals - certainly. Setting next year's goals - um... Strategic planning and visioning - well, toss the old dog a bone and let him speak.

light fingers the house with its own acoustics
   - C. D. Wright, Floating Trees

There is this growing sense of being left behind, as the workplace moves ever forward while I step off to the side. This, too, is exactly as it should be. Part of retiring is stepping back and letting others step forward in your place.

One Christmas there were only
three of us, so we sang 

the round with one part missing.
I still listen to the fourth part — 

that’s the real ghost. 

     - Chase Twichell, The Ghost of

I don't want to leave the wrong impression here or seem unduly maudlin about all of this. A ghost, after all, is a soul who didn't move on when they should have/could have, and I have no intention of being a ghost. I'm excited about my future, looking forward to this next phase of my life, and quite ready to stand down here at work. I feel fortunate to have this option to retire now, to live abroad if I choose, and to travel.

And let's be clear: this isn't being done to me, but rather is something I am choosing to do. My coworkers are not being mean or inconsiderate, and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with any of their actions related to any of this. It's only that my action (choosing to retire) is changing the reflection I see in the mirror as time moves forward. It changes the way I am reflected back to myself, and that is both interesting to observe and at least a little bit disconcerting.

A song? What laughter or what song
     Can this house remember?
Do flowers and butterflies belong
     To a blind December?” 

   - Robert Graves, Ghost Raddled

So the trick in this retiring process, I guess, is learning by and shifting from an external reflection of ourselves for our directional bearing, toward navigating by our own internal light.

[Puts down pen, pushes back chair from table and stands. Then walks stage left and exits, leaving only the table, chair, and a single bare bulb for light on stage.]

The ghost light
is what they call the single bulb hanging
above the bare stage in an empty theater. 

    - Robin Morgan, The Ghost Light