The First Monday of The Rest of My Life

It’s Monday, Labor Day, the First Monday Of The Rest Of My Life. I retired last Friday from the small non-profit social service agency I'd been working these last few years. I'd taken this job thinking it would be a quiet step-down into retirement, a tranquil little desk job that would cover my health insurance until I turn 65 and can go on Medicare. What it turned into was the Nightmare Job From Hell, the daily backdrop against which all of the other things that were happening in my life played out. 

This gig was supposed to be the denouement to a fine and challenging career. Instead, it ended up being one of the most harrowing and thankless jobs I'd ever had. 

So: On Friday I drove down to my office in West Palm Beach, finished up a few things, and dropped my equipment off with the IT guy. I turned in my front door key card to Rose at the front desk. Then I walked the long, echoing hallway to the back entrance (the one we’re not supposed to use) and took one last look around. 

I've quit jobs before. I've taken long months off of work at different times of my life, I've taken sabbaticals before, I've stepped away to wander in the wilderness awhile. But I wasn't just quitting this particular gig. I was dropping out entirely this time, walking away and washing my hands of it all. I wasn't coming back. So yeah, I took one last look at my little office down the hall. 

I was glad there'd been no dreadful going-away party, no strained well wishes from colleagues, or cheery questions about what I’ll do now, no happy chatter of travel or hobbies or volunteering. There was no cake, and this was by design, it was how I’d engineered it; I hate long, noisy goodbyes. I slipped quietly out the back.

How to explain these last three years? How to explain the last 60? 

* * *

There should have been cake, I realize now. More to the point, there should have been an exit interview. While it’s true I usually skip the exit interview I had a few things on my mind this time around and felt the need to share them with my former Workplace Development Team. But at the last minute, Kelley-the-HR-girl called off sick. The away message on her email said simply, “I’m out of the office. Contact Molly Rath.” Yeah right, like that was gonna happen. 

Molly Rath, the psychotic CFO that ran the place. If I had to pick any single reason (from the steaming pile of reasons) for why I chose this time, this moment, this place to not only quit, but to retire from public life entirely, it would be Molly Rath. As far as anyone could tell, her entire job description — no, her entire curricula vitae — consisted of one over-arching skill that superseded all others and which she had honed over the course of decades: “Shit on your staff.” 

Going to Molly for anything was like going to The Great And Terrible Oz. Needless to say, we’d never gotten too chummy. We hadn’t actually spoken at all in recent weeks, not since I'd shot her in the face one morning via email, after she’d left a particularly vile note for my new hire. 

“Dear Molly,” I wrote back, “I realize we’re not running a charm school here, but please try not to scare off the only candidate we’ve had interview for my position. If your snotty tone sends her running for the exits by end of week, you’ll be running this program by yourself because I’m not sticking around to train the next one for you.” 

I made sure to cc everyone before I pressed the "Hit Fucking Send" button. Molly nearly broke her neck sending an apology to the new girl (not to me natch, lulz) and we hadn't heard a peep from her since. 

It brought me exquisite pleasure that Molly couldn’t afford to fire me, as she was clearly yearning to do, but I had already resigned months ago. I was only still there because they’d begged me to stay long enough to train my replacement. We were still a month out from state monitoring at the time, and I was the only one with access to the required documentation they would want. Why? Because I was the only one doing anything. The renewal of our grant was predicated on successfully passing the audit. Which might explain why Molly had been particularly obnoxious lately: She needed me.   

Where’s my cake, I wanted to ask her. Where’s my 'fuck-y'all' exit interview? 

* * *

Whatever, as the kids like to say. My long and sordid career -- having spanned some 40 years before I washed up on this particular shore, and having taken me to virtually every corner of this once great nation -- came to a close not with a bang (and not with a cake) but with a whimper. I was sad for a minute, and then I wasn’t. 

Now it’s Monday, the First Monday of the Rest of My Life and I’m wondering what, exactly, it is that I’m supposed to do next. It’s not the first time I’ve dropped out of polite society to wander in the wilderness. But this time, it feels different. Some of my ships have started to come in. I have more resources now. I have options.  

And I’ve been through some things. I’ve learned. I’ve grown. I’ve changed. Maybe we all have. Covid broke my family, and in some ways it broke my whole life. I’ve had to face some hard facts about how I was living, and how my choices were impacting myself, my relationships, my outlook on this crazy thing called life. The last three years have really sucked, I’m not even gonna lie. They’ve had me reexamining everything I thought I knew, everything I thought was true, everything I thought I was. 

I’ll be writing about it some — I’m a writer by nature and by trade and, like all writers, I’m certain there’s a book in here somewhere — but mostly I just want to do the idle things. I want to ride my bike at midnight, or take a welding class or learn to SCUBA. I want to plan something fun for dinner and spend all afternoon making it. I want to take up Tai Chi, I want to string beautiful beads, and make tapestries of golden thread. I want to learn the dark, sinister arts and be the crazy he-witch of the forest. I want to join a choir. 

Just please shoot me if I ever join a book club.