It was going very slowly, until it went very fast

The One Where My Disability Retirement Is Approved

After being told that I would need to wait an additional 6-8 weeks (I started this process in November) for a determination, I was surprised last Friday with a phone call from my disability specialist case worker. I was on a train at the time, so I let it go to voicemail, silently reminding myself to check it during our layover in Boston. When I did actually remember, his message didn’t indicate whether or not a decision had been made. When I returned his call, it first went to voicemail and said that the office was already closed for the long weekend. But that was the general number. I searched through previous emails and found his direct line and finally got through to him. He announced, absent fanfare (perhaps it was a bit much for me to expect him to burst into the Halleluja chorus) that my disability retirement was approved. You might expect that I would have broken into a spontaneous dance of joy, but I was on the way to visit my boys and that was my immediate focus.

It wasn’t until I was on the train home that I began to process the news and think about it’s implications. Still no big feelings, though, to my surprise. Perhaps I never truly believed that I would be denied. This is PD we’re talking about… I’m not going to get better; PD only goes one way. Perhaps it is for this reason that I have yet to be overjoyed. Or maybe it’s because I was all of a sudden retiring from a job that I love after 26 years, moving into senior week for the Class of 2025 not only having to bid this special group of young adults goodbye but also my colleagues and community, a bittersweet life event if ever there was one. But just as there was no joy, there was also no sadness, no doubt due to the fact that I have been on leave from work for months. The change from being on leave to being retired wasn’t at all different. Still no alarms in the morning, no commute, nothing structuring my time except the intervals between doctor’s appointment and my own exercise/nap schedule that doesn’t adhere to any discernible pattern.

My hesitance to empty my office could be interpreted as an emotional response, but it could also be the apathy that accompanies a wacked out dopamine system. I get verklempt at commercials and Steve Hartman reels for crying out loud, but now two events into senior week and still no big feelings either way. Perhaps the dueling joy and sadness are cancelling each other out. Perhaps it won’t seem real until I receive my first retirement check. Or until fall when everyone else is going back to school except me.

I suppose I should feel gratitude, but this wasn’t a gift. I worked for this, and although it’s six years earlier than it would have been without my uninvited companion, I earned it.

I’m going to miss the kids. I’m going to miss being a part of something bigger than myself. I’m going to miss the colleagues who work magic with teenagers every single day. But I won’t miss those days that I was hanging on by my fingernails just to make it through, the exhaustion, continuously coming up short to my own expectations because my standard is stuck on what I used to be able to do and not whatever is left over.

My Mom has “failed” retirement three times, so I don’t fear idleness. I still have plenty to keep me occupied, and will ensure that it remains so. But it will be nice, when the urge to nap overtakes me, to be able to crawl up on the couch unabashed and get some rest. It doesn’t have to be so hard anymore. And for that I am grateful.