Calendar awaits color again
This weekend will mark one year since I retired.
In my case, retired is a euphemism for what happened that day. I think of retiring as a sort of “reclining” after years of hard work — a reward. I know a few people who have the retirement date circled in red on their calendar, with X’s marking off the countdown.
Even as I rounded the bend to Social Security age, I had no such calendar. I did not choose to retire. I was sacked, handed my papers and given a cardboard box. I was joined in the permanent layoff by about a dozen others on my team, all but a few of them much younger than I.
The year since that day has been a real doozy, 12 months wandering around inside my head as I’ve tried to decide what to do next. Unlike those who eagerly await the day they are free of work, I was not ready.
When the firing came, I was feeling strong and well and still enjoying my work as a documentary producer for public television. My work calendar from that month has the schedule for film shoots; my editing notes were decorated with the usual red and blue marker. All was left undone.
That calendar, late 2025, is a kind of visual metaphor for my life since then: I see all the creativity of the dates marked in bright colors and then the days go blank.
Some of the past year has been filled with red tape: signing up for Social Security and choosing a Medicare plan. If you’ve encountered that hurdle, you know the pain; clearing it is frustrating, time-consuming and annoying. Last fall brought a sizable project of preparing for the sale of a relative’s home. There were days I wondered how I would have managed both that and a full-time job. A few friends pointed out that, given my family responsibilities, losing my job was perhaps a blessing, and I get that. But now that I’m past that project, I long for the work and the creative outlet.
A therapist told me that I’m in one of life’s most challenging transitions. Those who choose to retire go through it, but the process can be even harder for those who have reached retirement age but are not ready. A friend whose husband retired from a career as a physician said the transition took him at least two years, so maybe I’m still only halfway through this muddy path.
The hardest days of the past year came when I was stuck indoors, namely those terribly cold days of winter. The bad air quality last week didn’t help either. Unable to take a bike ride or walk the dog left me tethered to my chair, to my house, to this puzzling existence.
As I exited the career that had brought me so much satisfaction and yes, joy, I thought about how I might continue. But landing another full-time producing gig at my age in the current changing and shrinking media landscape seems well-nigh impossible.
It’s not that I’m bored. Family and friends and cycling have kept me aloft. And I always look forward to writing this column; writing and deadline days of Wednesdays and Thursdays are noted in red on my calendar.
But, good grief, all the blank days. As I turn the calendar page toward August, I see the beginning of the next year of this transition, a pushing forward. They say there are few things as full of hope and promise as a new calendar.
Let’s see how I can fill the next 12 pages. Red and blue markers are standing by.