Retired not Dead

I Am Retired, Not Dead Art Print

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Each Society6 product is individually printed and assembled when you order it, so please allow days manufacture time for your custom product. Click here to checkout our return policy. There seems to be a part of my brain that was always thinking about drinking that gets to rest and dedicate itself to other things. Do I miss it? Back when I wrote the initial article, I was already hedging—assuming I would cheat occasionally. What could it hurt, right? Nothing about alcohol ever helped me be stronger, smarter, or kinder.

Anyone can make a simple mistake. Recently I have been on a quest for more thoughtful and sophisticated ways to screw up—like two months back when I was doing the bills, and following my system, I wrote down the amounts for all of the bills I pay on-line carefully in my checkbook. There are also some months where I pay all my bills twice. It just helps to round things out.

Translation

That and brain tumor are my go-to thoughts if I get anything worse than a hangnail. But at the time all of this happened, I was struggling with chronic dizziness probably a brain tumor, right? That started a marathon round of appointments. He checked me over and sent me to a head and neck specialist and recommended I see a vestibular physical therapist yeah, who knew there was such a thing.

Why I’m a striking lecturer: I want to stop the slow death of public education | Becky Gardiner

The head and neck specialist did a couple of tests and deemed that whatever was causing it was probably cardiovascular or neurological. The physical therapist spent two sessions making me do a series of bizarre exercises trying to make me dizzy or more dizzy than I was at the moment and failed miserably. I ended up seeing exactly the same woman, who did exactly the same test, and came to exactly the same conclusions.

I decided to check in with my neurologist.

He suggested I go to the head and neck department. I sought help from my acupuncturist who concluded there were clouds of smoke in my brain and that I needed to stay away from television, politics, basically, the world. My local health provider held a small ceremony for me where I was given a certificate of achievement for my tenacity in unsuccessfully trying to find the cause of the problem.

Finally, I decided to quit listening to everyone and pulled down the box where I keep my daily meds and started looking at everything I was taking to see if there was anything I could eliminate, anything that might be the culprit. When I stopped drinking nearly a year ago, I had trouble sleeping though the night. I was waking up more and more often at odd hours and finding it impossible to get back to sleep.

Two in the morning is just not a fun time to find yourself awake and yet still groggy and exhausted. When Mary suggested Melatonin, I thought, sure! After all, I bought it at Sprouts. It was doing exactly what I wanted it to do. I googled Melatonin and looked up possible drug interactions. And the timeline fit. The dizziness had begun shortly after I started taking it. I just never made the connection. So I quit taking it right away and the dizziness did not go away immediately, but at least the insomnia returned. It actually took three weeks before I was symptom free.

I enjoyed weeks of mental clarity without the low-grade sense that my brain was slowly rocking or spinning occasionally.

I was quite proud of myself for chasing down my own stupidity. What are you gonna do? Maybe I can put my yard blower up against one ear and see if I can blow out some of that smoke on my brain. I certainly never used to keep my very own blood pressure monitor tucked behind my laptop on my desk just so I can check it every now and then for my entertainment.

I have a few limitations on my physical activity, but most of them are mental limitations—fear of failure or injury. Learning how to surf sounds like fun on some days. On others days it sounds like an invitation to the emergency room.

But speaking of the guitar, I do still admire the skill of others and so last night when my wife and I were enjoying the warm evening at one of our local go-to restaurants, we were pleasantly surprised by the live music on the patio. He was just a gentle soul with long, blonde hair who sang simple folk songs that all sounded as if they came right out of the playlist of my teenage years.

Toward the end of the evening he began playing a song I had never heard, but as I listened to the lyrics it felt as though the writer had ripped a page out of my life and thoughts over the past months. I mostly think about how good that first cup of coffee is going to taste, and how I really need to get down to the shop and get new tires put on my car. I actually like finding music that hits too close to home. And that hers will be the first face I see tomorrow morning and in the many mornings left to come. I think that perception comes from the fact that I develop habits and preferences and, in the absence of other options, better options, I will stick to those established habits and preferences.

For example, once I secure my cup of Starbucks coffee for the morning, I sit down to read the paper. When I get to a certain part of the front page, I get up and toast an English muffin which I slather with almond butter and blackberry jam. I like certain brands of the almond butter and jam so I stock up on them when they are on sale.

Not even close to being OCD. If a faucet is dripping, or a door is binding up, I struggle.

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I feel this immense weight until I can address the problem. For example, I know with this particular light:. I got the appointment at the dealer, got the car dropped off and went home to wait for the expensive phone call. The service representative finally called me to explain that a fuel sensor inside the gas tank needed to be replaced which would involve the mechanics pulling out the backseat so they could access the gas tank and replace the sensor.

Oh, and by the way it was impossible to do the repair without some gas being spilled on the outside of the tank. But as I began to drive home, I was almost overcome by wave after wave of a gasoline smell coming from the backseat of the car. I turned around and wheeled the car back to the dealer where the service rep reassured me that the excess gas would burn off within a couple of days.

A week later I was still getting whiffs of the gaseous odor and returned the car to the rep to have it checked out.

As I walked out the the lot to retrieve my car, I could smell the reek from 5 feet away. I dragged the rep from out of his cubicle and made him stand with me and enjoy the fumes emanating from my vehicle. He looked puzzled and thoughtful. I guess that could be gas. The next day, he called and assured me all was well, and I could come and retrieve my vehicle once again. And, believe me, I wanted nothing more than to believe that all was well, that they had fixed the problem, and that hey, maybe the whole thing was just in my head.

As I drove off, the toxic shampoo they had used in the back of the car was almost as bad as the gas fumes had been, and I drove through the night with the windows down. Sure enough, before I had made it home, the gas smell was back.

The Retirement Myth

I can no longer tell if my car has a problem, or if I have a problem. Then I remember this older gentleman who owned a little car shop called The Little Car Shoppe nearby. I called him and explained my situation and he seemed intrigued.

This guy is the guy you always hope you will find to work on your vehicle. He always keeps the radio tuned to NPR.

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He had to chase down a new one and asked me to give him one more day to see if he could find me the best deal on one. By the next afternoon, he called to say he was done. When I got there, he showed me the dirty and pitted seal that the dealer had tried to get by with and which had allowed the fumes to escape. This adventure is the kind of thing that sucks the soul out of me.

It makes me question both my judgement and my sanity. When I let it, it consumes me. At some point, I did manage to step back from it and get some perspective. Maybe it was all the gas fumes that were scrambling my brain. Sure, sometimes I feel under-appreciated. The many thankless tasks that I complete that go unnoticed and unthanked—it happens. I feel like an imposter.

I am dark and mysterious, and pissed off! And I could be very dangerous to all of you. You should know that about me. Dark, mysterious, pissed off. Just this week I purposely drove 50 yards or so down a one-way street the wrong way just to to avoid going around the block. Most recently I got way too much praise for something I did out of sheer impatience. I was standing in line at a Kaiser pharmacy behind a young man who had to be at least 18 years old, but appeared to have no clue about the process for ordering or paying for medication that he apparently needed right away.

He showed up to get the prescription with no money and no credit card. The attendant let him use the phone to call his parents thinking they could give a credit card number over the phone to cover the co-pay. For some reason this was no longer if it ever had been allowed. She looked up at me, startled, unsure if she could share such privileged information, and so I asked her again speaking more slowly and more clearly.

Finally, the boy thanked me profusely, and the cashier told me repeatedly what a nice person I was for doing this. The guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder. Man, that is really cool. What I was paying for was convenience and my own impatience. It was well worth the ten bucks to get to the front of the line and not have to wait any longer for the Kaiser people to figure out what to do with this kid.

After keeping the same eyeglass frames for 8 years, I changed them up recently. It helps me to navigate the world with a good reputation. Only you, my 12 faithful readers, will know the real truth.

I did not see this one coming. Near the end of March, I was about to write a piece about how well the experience of sobriety was going with one of the most remarkable things being a nearly euphoric sense of well being. I had just finished a day writing challenge and had gotten to spend five days on the Oregon coast.

I was physically active and had my volunteer work going to keep me engaged. And then, everything seemed to go south on me. Suddenly, I began to feel a sense of isolation and anger began to build up inside of me. I was plagued both by self-pity and a sense of inadequacy. I no longer had the comfort of a bar or a brewery to use to pass the time and enjoy the boozy camaraderie.

There was not an easily identifiable trigger. I simply drifted into a state of withdrawal and anger bordering on a kind of rage—rage at the news, rage at nearly everyone I encountered on the road, simmering anger at every person in every bar or restaurant I entered who was allowed to enjoy their beers, when I had to deny myself. Was it their second or third? Why were they allowed to toy so casually with their health when I could not?

I have been seeing a therapist who specializes in addiction medicine and I saw her twice during the month of May when things were going badly. I feel like a kid in class when I do the iPad thing, wanting to get good scores for my efforts at abstinence but also wanting to be honest about how bad this bout of depression had been. I had not actually contemplated suicide over the past two months. Dealing with a minor car problem seemed epically difficult. The multitude of unfinished projects around the house made me feel surrounded by failure even though they were dwarfed by the overall beauty of our house and our yard.

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