Frameworks

I had a dream last night about my old job. I was still gone and had been gone, but it everything was pleasant and cooperative and not as things really are in the waking world. I felt sad. Not angry or frustrated or upset, just sad. This felt odd because I tend to mix my emotions like spring break cocktails. I can't remember the last time I felt plain vanilla sadness. I like it better than rageful envious melancholy or thwarted despair. It's refreshing, Like a crisp sauvignon blanc.

I realized I must have had this dream because next week is the one year anniversary of my retirement. It doesn't seem nearly that long.

This feels like it was the shortest year of my life. Part of this must be due to the effect of age. As we get older time seems to go faster. When I was eight, the time between my birthday and Christmas seemed an eternity rather than three months. Now I feel as though I barely have time to bring up my sweaters and find the mulling spices. This year has definitely been the most mentally healthy. My job had become a source of terrible anxiety and dread. I loved so much about the people and the mission, but the weight of bureaucracy politics and responsibilities crushed me every day. I now feel a full inch taller. But this year was also arguably the physically sickest. While the headaches and reaction to the anti-radiation steroids made the winter of 24 really hard, I do think this year's colitis and pancreatitis ended up being more debilitating. I would actually argue that not working made them more difficult.

Responsibilities and a full schedule make it harder to lie in bed. The guilt I would feel in needing to cancel or hand off a task would often outweigh my pain and force me out of bed or at least upright and typing. This year, I took much better care of myself than I did when I was working and going through treatment. I got full nights of sleep, rested when my body needed it, and could better ensure that I got enough water and electrolytes. I walked four miles a day and maintained a sub-100 bpm heart rate. I sure as hell drank less. You're welcome, kidney. All of this is wonderful, but I do feel like I've lost the ability to power through and I really did like that about myself.

But over the past year, I've realized how a job puts a frame of value around even the most useless of activities. Even if I went to work and all I did was sit in stupid Teams calls, the frame around my day made it look like I did something. Now my wife comes home from work and asks, "What did you do today?" and despite the fact that I've been in nonstop motion, I don't know what to tell her. Even when every thing I did was something I value -- no loitering over a podcast or sleeping late -- I feel unaccomplished because the world doesn't value what I've done. It is a truly shitty state of affairs that the world values a pointless email more than a poem. I try to remind myself of this, but I have internalized the productivity myth big time and a million little comments and reactions throw the world's opinion back in my face.

Despite this, I am still convinced that even if I were consistently healthy, I can't go back to a jobby job. If I did, I would need to do something fulfilling and or tangible like computer programming or cancer counseling. Definitely no management. But when I consider these paths, I immediately wonder if I will stay healthy enough to complete the training required, let alone start working. And who is going to hire someone with a stage IV cancer set to return at an undetermined point? Granted I don't need to disclose, but I'm not hard to find online. My lack of respect for authority and inability to suffer fools made me rather unemployable before, but now I would be quite the gamble.

Shawn helpfully pointed out that maybe what I'm missing is a schedule. She suggested I make the hours between nine and noon uninterruptible writing time. I can then schedule any other obligations around this. It sounds so good in theory. My biggest challenge is the only person making me do it is me and this is someone I rarely listen to. I really should listen to me more, I have great ideas. I am always giving those great ideas to others, often unsolicited. But among Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies, I'm a rebel. I don't like to be told what to do by anyone, including me. I don't like authority and this will require me to respect my own authority, and who made me the boss of me? Well, I guess me? And also cancer.