Finding a new path

LITTLE ROCK — “So tell me,” the banker said. “What’s it like being you nowadays?”

I was in a conference room on a chilly afternoon last February. He was referring to the fact that I had retired from government service a scant four months earlier.

“Surreal,” I replied. “It is completely surreal.”

And it was. It has now been a little over a year since I retired. Looking back on the past year is like looking at two sides of a coin. “Heads” means one thing. “Tails” the polar opposite.

The first six months were just awful. I know now that I had wrapped up far too much of my identity in my work. This is not unusual, particularly in men. Work is what we are put here to do. It also can keep us from having to deal with stuff because we’re “too busy.”

And so, while all those years of saving and setting aside allowed me to retire at 55, I was not prepared for what a shock to the system not being “too busy” would be.

After all, there is comfort in ritual and in sameness. For 28 years, I got up every morning. I got dressed and I went to work. And then one day I didn’t. I experienced a great deal of disorientation upon the loss of the busy and mostly self-important person I pretended to be for years.

And I felt guilty about having these feelings. After all, I am getting paid a considerable amount of money just for waking up in the morning.

This is a problem? Go to the myeloma clinic at UAMS if you want to see a problem. Cancer trumps pointless angst any day. Intellectually, I knew these things. But the intellect wasn’t doing the driving much in those days and, quite frankly, I was ashamed of myself.

Then one day, after about six months, the coin flipped. Maybe it was because I started working a little bit. Maybe it was because I made new friends and because I drew my old friends nearer. One of those new friends was a myeloma patient. She didn’t make it. That will give one a dose of perspective.

Or maybe it was because I finally allowed myself to believe that unless I bought a Ferrari or married the cocktail waitress things really, really weren’t going to change. But for whatever reason, I just woke up one morning and everything was okay. On that morning, things were no longer surreal. It is really not much more complicated than that.

One of my social-worker friends says I “reintegrated.” One of my psychologist friends said I became comfortable with no longer trying to earn my self-esteem. I don’t much care about the technical explanation. I’m just glad that it happened.

My life has a different rhythm to it now. I’ve taken some trips. Got more planned. Most of the things I thought would happen by now didn’t happen. Some of the things I have stumbled into I could not possibly have imagined doing a year ago. And it’s all cool. I seem to be operating more by “feel” nowadays than by “plan,” which is something that my prior rigid, if not slightly neurotic, self would have never permitted.

But I’m good with it now.

I’m trying my hand at new things. For example, I’ve had the opportunity to do a little teaching at both the high school and college level. I found that deeply satisfying. I particularly enjoyed spending time with the economics classes at Mount St. Mary’s. Girls really listen. It was kind of scary. They also sent me “thank you” cards, which I found impossibly sweet and thoughtful. Believe me; spending time with kids beats practicing law all to hell.

But I bring my legal experience to bear on certain issues with the consumer-protection organization I am working with. It’s about as close to practicing law as I want to get some days. Other days, I feel that I will practice law again. I’ve done some consulting work with a bank, which was very interesting. I have been presented with other interesting opportunities. Some appealed to me. Others didn’t.

That’s the beauty of my new life. I pretty much don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. And I can pretty much do it on my schedule from my front-porch swing or the coffee shop.

I read an interesting article in the New York Times recently. It was written by a lawyer who quit after 30 years because she wanted to do something else with her life. Boy, did that sound familiar. She wrote that it took her 18 months before she found her new path. If that’s the time frame, then I am about on track. I just still don’t have the foggiest notion of what I will do in the second chapter. Which is okay. Like I said, I’m comfortable with feeling my way through things nowadays.

So how would I answer the banker’s question today? Easy. What’s it like being me?

Blessed and grateful in the extreme. That’s what it’s like being me. Blessed and grateful in the extreme.

—–––––

Arthur Paul Bowen is a writer and retired lawyer living in Little Rock.