Corporate Business has a blind spot when it comes to aging, but that can’t stop me. I understand it’s difficult for management to comprehend that they too will one day face the last stage of their lives. In the corporate world, it’s all about growth—whether revenue, the customer base, or a career.
What degree you earn, seminar you take, or contacts you add to your growing list can project you into the glorious future you’ve long imagined. Every step you take is important. Funny how days turn into weeks, years, and then decades as you pursue this distant goal. Does living for the future make time move faster?
I’m mentor material now; yet forty-somethings spring up everywhere with advice filled books and seminars telling how to “make it.” My eyes glaze over, like a teenager lectured about a curfew. I’m at the top of the hill, looking down at ant-like action I once embraced as if my life depended on it. Bills I must pay, I’m not ready to let go—at least not yet.
I’m on my own, it seems, and my passion for better tools, more efficiency, speedier solutions unwelcome. I overreact in a desperate last grip to regain control. No one wants to hear it. They have plenty of tomorrows to fix things gone wrong. Or so they think. Better to smile and play nice.
Then there’s the money advice, which is all around and not quite specific enough. How much a person my age should have, and how to plan the last five, four, three, two, one years before retirement is a numbers game. Many people my age can’t contemplate it. Whether they could have, would have, or tried to, they haven’t saved enough. Illness pushes out the unlucky who are too sick and tired to work.
That’s not me—at least not now.
I count down the weeks—fifty-two times two, or maybe it’s sixty-eight, or somewhere in between. “You’ll know when it’s time,” people say. But what will the economy be like then? Will I still be healthy? After all my planning and saving, will I have enough? What about Covid-19?
Day by day, how do I maintain a positive face and enjoy these last few weeks? A year and a half, two years goes by in a flash.
It won’t be easy. Each day, one day at a time, I must hesitate before I speak, think kindly of every person I encounter, and produce my best work. I need to end this well, with courage and kindness.
It’s best to go out gracefully and enjoy this new chapter of retirement. I’ve earned it.