The Last Day

This is a bad selfie I took of myself some time back, riding the North Line Metra train from Main Street in Evanston down to Chicago's Loop.  Back in the olden days, B.C. (Before Covid-19), masses of eerily quiet people dressed in suits and sensible dresses would cram into these aging coaches daily, to be  pulled by ancient locomotives spewing diesel fumes to their offices or cubicles in high rise buildings.  I convinced myself that I liked it.  I used to call it "a civilized commute" since I wasn't stuck in my own passenger car, in traffic on the Kennedy Expressway.  I did this for many years.  The routine was broken by frequent trips to other cities, when I would schlep to O'Hare and go through the multiple indignities of air travel - mobs of people, security screening, crowded planes, the wait for ground transportation at the other end.  I spent 42 years living this life of white collar striving.

Today is my last day.

It is a weird transition, to be sure.  The Coronavirus pandemic derailed my routine,  I have been in my apartment, working from my home office, since March 14.  I decided to accelerate my retirement because I have conducted business through direct connection, face-to-face interactions,  I find it difficult to make that type of connection via Zoom.  The past 108 days have been a slow wind down.  I decided in May that I would retire a little early.  I don't think the fancy-pants executive life I lived will be possible for quite a while.

Looking back on my career is only helpful if it allows me to draw some lessons on how to behave today and how I should prepare for the future.  I made so many mistakes through the years - bonehead business errors and screw-ups in my personal life.  But I am glad for all of the experiences, both good and awful.  It was the excruciatingly painful events that finally made me a better human.  And now I can feel reasonably calm as I face uncertainty as a non-entity, an old retired guy.

I don't know what will happen.  I am totally comfortable with this ambiguity.  I know I won't miss trying so hard to satisfy and impress people that don't really know me as a person. I spent way too much time deriving my self-worth from the opinions of others.  Maybe I will finally get to know who I am.

One thing for sure - there will be more music in my life now.