I decided to retire two months after I placed Robert at Daylight Senior Living and Memory Care, although saying “I decided” might be imbuing my choice with too much rationale. The upheaval of the past few years had left me truly .
The decision to move Robert tore at my heart. The all-consuming process had upended me. I felt as though I’d ventured to another planet, and coming back to earth, could no longer communicate with earthlings. I heard garbled chatter from a great distance when friends and colleagues spoke to me.
For four years, since Robert’s diagnosis, I had successfully compartmentalized “my work” and “my life with Robert” into two separate buckets in my mind. The ability to compartmentalize is a valuable skill. But if any of your buckets springs a leak and one bucket seeps into another, the gig is up. We have a hard time holding tragedy in abeyance while the mundanity of the world of work washes over us.
What went through my mind then?
It struck me how very short life is. The mechanics of the workday: waking up, logging into Skype, composing emails, hosting meetings, and reporting on my team’s progress all elicited a big “don’t care” from me. The only work activity that brought me joy was engaging directly with my team.
Right before I went on leave from my job I was “rehomed” with a new boss. My third in six months. I managed a training and technical publications team. We were the ugly stepchild of the business; baggage that came with the marriage, but altogether too annoying to assign a permanent bedroom. (This is the fate of many supporting functions that are “must haves” for the business, but which generate no revenue.)
As a director in the middle of the management food chain, it was my job to manage the predators above and protect my crew from attack. “Managing up,” as it is euphemistically referred to, can be an exercise in daily terror, depending on the organization.
Who is it now?
I find the process of acclimating to a new boss very draining. You have to learn how they think and how they want to have information presented to them. (Do you want it in a box? Do you want it with a fox? On a boat? With a goat?)
You must understand whether they see your department as a help or hindrance in their climb up the ladder. (Can I help you here or there? Can I help you ANYWHERE?)
The reality of what lay ahead didn’t inspire me to act. I didn’t have the stamina to align myself with a new boss, to play politics the way the work world required. I’ll never forget, what an old political science professor once shared during our first class session, “Politics is about the allocation of scarce resources. Full stop.” I couldn’t fight for my slice of the pie anymore.
Taking stock
There are a slew of practical considerations to consider when we contemplate retirement. Mine focused solely on the financial consequences of leaving the workforce. I’d committed to Robert’s ongoing care outside the home. Could I afford to quit work when I was spending more than my take-home pay for his care each month? Would my investments carry me through?
I busied myself with enumerable spreadsheets each capturing and exploring a different scenario. At just 60, surely I could find another job if I needed to at some point in the future. Right now I could no more put on a happy face to a potential employer than I could fly to the moon.
And there was the anxiety I felt each day, palpable, unrelenting. I did need to stop and take inventory of my options. I needed to take care of myself. Retirement would be one stride in the marathon of recreating my life.
I realize that I am one of the lucky ones. Most people, no matter how exhausted they are by caregiving, can’t afford to place their loved ones in a memory care facility. Still more have to quit work to care for their partner because they don’t earn enough working full-time to cover the cost of an in-home aide. For many, this forced retirement is crippling financially and all too often irremediable.
I hope I’ve communicated that we are wrecked when a partner loses their mind. There is no path forward except to stop whatever it is we are doing and save ourselves. We’re the only ones still standing, after all. You can’t take care of anyone unless you take care of yourself.
So I officially retired.
Then I booked a weeklong trip to Alaska. Perhaps walking across a glacier would soothe my troubled soul.