What’s Next

I turned 65 last year and pulled the trigger on my retirement. 

On that birthday, I watched the 2001 Action/Thriller Spy Game.  A veteran CIA agent (Robert Redford), on his last working day before retirement, shrewdly dupes his superiors in order to spring his protégé (Brad Pitt) out of a foreign prison. Inspired by Redford’s resourcefulness and several adult beverages I imagined myself turning in the keys to my company car leaving behind a bevy of colleagues venerating my skills and smarts. Over the hill? Phooey. Still got game.

I had been considering retiring since the beginning of the 2025 and one would think that I would have done some research on the subject before making it official. There are plenty of blogs, books, podcasts about hanging up the hat. I didn’t read or watch any of them.

So, when I pressed send on my farewell email containing forwarding bounce to my successor, I immediately felt empty and disoriented and tearful.  Not relief or freedom. Nuh uh.  And I was completely unprepared for that. I have cried so much these last weeks that I had to buy two full cases of 3 ply Scotties tissues.

My last few months at work were frenzied while I prepared to pass the baton.  I sprinted at full power and slammed hard into the end of my employ. I was spent and lost and it felt terrifying.  And it was only then that I started searching out resources that could explain that.

I found this on an Instagram post.

There’s a strange ache that comes when your old career identity no longer fits, but your new path hasn’t fully formed.
You feel unsteady, unsure, like you’re floating.
Not who you were.  Not quite who you’re becoming.
It’s a quiet, disorienting space, but it is also where something new begins.
The Career Therapist

Yes.  It felt like the beginning of a new beginning but also, disturbingly, the beginning of the end.

I have spent a couple of decades doing work of which I am intensely proud.  I felt I made a difference. The calibre of the people with whom I served and worked was utmost. I am mourning the loss of those interactions. 

It feel strange to say goodbye to this career while I felt on top of it.  There were complex and engaging important projects in the works. Cool stuff.

I had a lot of fun.  I was good at connecting dots and people. And the job took me to places I would otherwise never have seen and introduced me to stellar people I would never have met. 

My team was a tight group of competent, merry, keen and clever friends.

So why did I retire? From a career viewpoint, a couple of things.

Cumulative travel and jetlag stress. My body yearns for a daily rhythm that doesn’t involve airports.  Virtual Teams meetings can hold the fort and keep the lights on but face to face visits are where the magic happens. Fosters trust and accountability. My mother always said I was an all or nothing kid.  That’s true and I didn’t want to continue in a position where onsite meetings would be compromised by my shrinking tolerance for shrinking airline seat pitches and sleep scores.  I wanted to quit well before my “best before” date.

Also, for the past three decades, I have been an unequivocal introvert working in an extrovert’s world. That takes its toll. In a job that demands 100% mental engagement just to keep up, the cost of assembling my basket of coping tools was high. While colleagues, love ‘em, might want to meet for a de-stressing/recharging after-work dinner for me that felt like a shift on top of shift leaving me on the edge of constant burnout.

A University of Toronto professor was quoted in a Globe and Mail special article, “Some introverts may be able to turn on extraversion when they feel they have to do what needs to be done, but it often comes at a high cost,” Prof. Zweig says. “There’s a lot of emotional labour involved when introverts have to be extroverted for over a long period of time. It’s draining.”

Yes, hear hear, I say.

And, at the beginning of my career, I felt charged by everything I was learning and everyone I met. A lot of information and knowledge was being compiled in the matrix in my head and pictures and connections took form. That was stimulating.  Gratifying. At the latter end of my career, new and exciting technology and concepts are even more in play adding colour to the matrix mosaic. But, the basically the big picture has been formed.

I feel now compelled to build a new, different mosaic.

I molded my life around my career.  The latter days I felt the need to fit my career around my life. 

So it’s time.

I believe that shakeups on occasion are a good thing.  My last assignment will benefit from someone with a fresh perspective, fresh science chops and carryon luggage that fits the sizer. I pass on the torch with my seasoned perspective and heartfelt well wishes.

I have learned much these past few weeks. The support of family has been inestimable.  Believe me, they charted my emotional potholes like seasoned teamsters.  I lost my shit so many times.  I am intensely grateful for their love and patient wisdom.

The love bombing from my collegues and customers was overwhelming. The notes, videos, gifts burst my heart. I am intensely grateful for them for travelling this road with me. Respect and love to all.

And now?  Curiously, I find I have to stop myself from hurrying.  I realize in this quieter space that I have had a lifetime of hustle.  A lifetime of rush. I am so conditioned to booting from one task to complete the next. There is a quiet joy in taking a whole two minutes to brush my teeth without the task rolodex flipping in my head.

There is time to breathe without assigning ten minutes of mindfulness in my daily calendar. There is a rhythm in my life that feels natural and unforced. I don’t have to remind myself to unclench.  It has taken me a month to get to this place. I am so grateful that I am here by choice and not ill circumstance.

So what’s next.

Dirt.  Lots of it. I am taking an arboriculture course now which will be helpful in planning the layout of our little micro farm.  As soon as the ground thaws I plan to move forward on a greenhouse build and a means to thwart the deer in the rest of the garden. 

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Oh, and I just bought a big old truck for trees and muck.  So, like Redford I am driving away from my former employ sated and satisfied in a job well done and no regrets.

And seriously time to update this website!!! Yikes.