Exit Stage Left To Freedom

If all the world’s a stage and all the individuals merely players, then that has seemed even more intense in the world of employment. At work, we are even more aware of the characters we play. And even as I have brought authenticity to those characters, they still have been characters, subject to the unrelenting grip of all the other characters and elements of the play ~ the Boss, the Office Mate, the HR chorus, the set, and the script. We re-enact the scenes over and over: the Performance Review, the Meeting About The Budget, the Holiday Party, the list goes on.

Of course, the sacred rule in the grand play called Employment is, never go off-script. You can’t walk up to the director and say, “I feel like my character would do this instead so that's what I'm doing,” god no. There isn’t even a director as such, but the collective royal "We" of dominant culture, informed by tricky things like hierarchy, race, and gender. But I digress.

By making the choice to forge new paths now, I've decided to reclaim retirement, not as the old idea of going out to pasture after one is mostly used up, but as a choice for freedom here in my last dozen or so years of "productivity." It’s about awakening, full time and not just on nights and weekends, to the me that is not described by employment accoutrements.

Being retired will mean renewed and renewable energy to create, strive, and work in a state of flow. Because now, I get to choose the terms of my labor and the terms of rest. And since I've never become an early morning person even after 30 years of hitting snooze at 5 AM, it's going to be glorious.