I'm Retired, Right?
Back in February of 2018 I retired. Why? I was...tired. I was tired of climbing the corporate ladder. I was tired of the of the anxiety of wondering how my work was faring. I was tired of writing reports. I was tired of not following my heart. Since retiring my life has been joyful. I spend my time choosing to do things that I want to do. It’s also been challenging. I’ve had to trust myself with a fixed amount of money (something I have always doubted myself on and no I don’t have a reason to). I’ve had to fill up my days with activities. I’ve had to listen to my emotions. In the past I always buried my emotions in my work and now my emotions face me every morning. Facing my emotions has also been rewarding- finally connecting to myself in ways I haven’t in the past.
COVID has provided me with new challenges. I am very grateful that I remain healthy and that I have not experienced the financial impact from the economic downfall that COVID has brought. I still have my home and I can still afford to do things- though the list of things that I can do has grown very small. I have been volunteering where I can. There are no more visits to hospice. I have been able to support my Buddhist Sangha and I have been spending every other Saturday at a refugee farmers market (masked, of course). So I decided to help out my community in different way. I decided to return to work.
On August 1, 2020, I went back to work. I became an enumerator for the 2020 US Census. Since the Census only comes every 10 years and thanks to our current leader it is only lasting until September 30, 2020 , I would only be working for 2 months. That’s doable right? Enumerators go to the homes of people who haven’t responded to those 10 postcards that the US Census has mailed them. Enumerators knock on those doors and ask the census questions in person and log them for the government to use so that the government can determine how many Congress people a state gets, what kind of federal funding schools and hospitals get, and even help the 911 system in knowing where your home is.
I found the entire process fascinating. There’s some cool technology now involved in doing the counting. We are all issued cell phones that download our daily list of homes to visit. The addresses are linked to Google Maps so we know exactly where to go (well mostly, some of the directions were a little messed up and when you get into the mountains here you will sometimes lose your signal). There was a script for us to follow listed right on the census phone app so you didn’t need to memorize anything you needed to say. The census office even supplied us with masks for ourselves and the people we visited so everyone could be safer.
I was allowed to set my own work scheduled and I limited myself to working 4 hours a day tops. There was a day or 2 where I did 4.5 hours, but I mostly didn’t want to get myself feeling overburdened. The weather in August in Utah can get oppressive. Most days the temperature hits the high 90s and there’s little to no rain. It’s super dry and there are very few clouds in the sky. With a mask on that makes for a pretty intense experience. Even with just 4 hours in a workday I was pretty wiped out by the end. I found myself taking naps after my shifts.
The Department of Commerce is on a tight deadline with the Census this year. Due to COVID they had to start the enumerators later than expected Then with the president setting an early deadline, they have to end the enumeration earlier than originally planned. So the census department decided to offer some incentives to enumerators to get the job done as quickly as possible. If an enumerator works up to 15 hours in a week and gets at least 1 response every 45 minutes they get a $50 bonus for the week. If an enumerator works 25 hours following the same guidelines listed above they get a $100 bonus for the week. If the enumerator does the latter for 3 weeks in a row they get an additional $500 bonus on top of the weekly bonuses. During my career I was all about the incentive. Offer me a carrot and I’m going to start planning on making my carrot cake. I also loved praise. In my career days I would work for praise. That was a dangerous spot to be in. While I could enjoy the appreciation it gave me, I would end up putting work before my well-being and let myself get sucked in to unhealthy situations.
So I went off to my new job with curiosity and confidence. This job was different than my earlier career. I only worked 4 hours a day (max), I didn’t have the worries of the day hanging over me when I came home, there were no reports due, no deadlines to meet. So on the surface this job looked like a great way to pass the time and a great way for my extroverted self to interact with people, My supervisor quickly identified me as his “best” enumerator. Every time I called him he would answer, “Hello #1!”. This was the perfect summer opportunity for me....or not.
4 weeks into the job I noticed I was feeling different than my usual self. I wasn’t very creative. I wasn’t writing, I wasn’t playing my violin. I didn’t feel as alert as I usually did. I felt anxious. I worried that I wasn’t going to be able to hold up that “best” enumerator title. I felt like I was in a place of lack when all I was lacking was 4 hours of my day. The night before I was going to start my 5th week of work I went to an outdoor meditation ceremony. There, tuning into my inner self the following thoughts came to me:
-Joy is here for me to take
-Relationship is here for me to make
-Work is irrelevant
Writing/making art glass/teaching yoga/helping with the sangha - this is my work
Connect with the earth/learning - this is my job
That night I went to sleep. In the middle of the night I woke up and wrote this piece:
Humble
Being humble doesn’t suit you. Being humble strips you of the authenticity of who you are. Being that “small puzzle piece in the universe” is not you. Your friend J says you are a giant puzzle piece with so many little jagged edges that other things and people get to connect to. Being humble robs you of the opportunity to serve the world. It diminishes you. You are a bright candle; a glowing light of energy. Being humble stifles you and keeps your glow to a little spark; an anemic flame. It’s time to let go of that cutesy, little girl that the world has told you to be. It’s time to burst out of that role that is bullshit and isn’t who you really are. Go out in the world on fire and be the real you. Fuck the people who can’t accept it. Clap back at those who want to put you in your place because that place is their place and not yours. It’s time to shine girlfriend. The day is today the moment is now.
And then I was done. Done with working. Again. I called the Census the next day and turned in my badge. I was off to live my life and venture out into the world to be the me I was meant to be. Later that day an interesting thing happened. I was contacted by the leader of my Buddhist fellowship community. He invited me to be a part of the fellowship board of directors. I was honored and excited. I had turned down the one job in my life that didn’t suit me to make space for one that fit my heart. Within a week of that offering I was making appointments for private yoga classes over Zoom. My world was turning right side up again. For now.