Every evening, the sun descends below the tree line behind our home and paints the blue canvas of the sky with different hues of red, orange, pink, and some other shades of color that I cannot even begin to name.
Most evenings, I hardly pay any attention to those colors. On a few occasions I would chance to look through the window and find myself saying, wow, where did those colors came from?
Some evenings, the colors in the sky are
not merely different, they are exceptional.
The same happens with the steady progression of days. Most days nothing extraordinary happens. But scattered among the mundane, some days feel exceptional and their imprints in the pages of memories stand out like distant skyscrapers that dot the horizon of an approaching city.
If I fly high above in the sky and look at the line below what life has been, it has been everything I could be grateful for. It has been a fortunate progression of events. There are no gaps in the line or jarring 360 degree turns. No unexpected layoffs or being told by a doctor on a routine visit that something just does not seem right.
On that road of my life, there are no tread marks of a car skidding off the road.
True to the logo on the t-shirt I sometimes wear, the line says, “I am blessed.”
The line below wiggles a little but follows a direction. The events that felt like they were going to upend the future, when seen from here and now, seem not so significant.
Along the line, the colors change gradually as I move from left to the right, from the moment of my birth to where I stand now. Distinct colors belong to phases that I have lived. In between them there are zones of transitions where colors gracefully morph from one shade into another.
In most transitions there was a comfort in knowing what to expect. The path was laid out by the norms – play, learn, earn. Those transitions were, well, just transitions.
Nothing exceptional. Nothing jarring. Nothing traumatic.
In all those transitions, the future was there. The script was already written - Chapter 1: Play. Chapter 2: Learn. Chapter 3: Earn - and I played the script out. Until now.
As I turn the page, suddenly a blank one stares back at me. There is no script to follow. No words laid out in straight lines. No instructions on what to do next. All I have in front is the chapter heading – Adjourn. And below, written in smaller letters – The Retirement.
This time, as I am getting ready to reach the start line of a transition thinking that it would be another easy lap, there is no one standing to hand me the baton. Instead, there is a jarring sense of emptiness. A feeling that the life ahead is going to be unanchored, and I will drift through the sea of continuous, but empty, progression of days.
As I turn around the corner, the usual nicely laid out track is not there. There is no red turf with graceful white lines to guide my steps. Instead, there is an unpaved road with billboards that look down at me. On them, scribbled are questions – How are you going to spend the days? What will be your meaning and purpose? What will be your identity?
This is not what I was expecting when I turned the page and reached Chapter 4.
Like the exceptional colors of some evening sky, or like some days that do become imprinted in our memories, this transition turns out to be exceptional.
Added to the mix of bafflement of needing to navigate an unscripted transition is a magnified realization of mortality. A realization that this time road does not actually go on forever.
At the start of this journey, I am leaving so much behind – identity, purpose, meaning, routine – and yet I do not have anything in my hands - no script to guide what is ahead – and for a bonus have the enhanced sense of mortality.
It is hard to come to grips with the fact that this time I am holding the reins. It is I who will draw on resources within to build an identity, find purpose and meaning, find reasons to get out of bed in morning.
It is time to realize, and to accept, that retirement is a transition that is vastly different from others. This time, responsibility for the future is on my shoulders.
This time, I need to write the script.
It is time to start scribbling words on the empty page. Chapter 4 – Adjourn (The Retirement).
I will let you know how the script goes.
Ciao.
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