Moving On

It stood tight against the wall of my home office, lurking over my shoulder. If I turned my head slightly, I could see it from the corner of my eye. It kept my secrets. It supported my memory. It guarded my treasures.

I had to get rid of it.

‘It’ was a black, four-drawer, three-foot-wide, lateral filing cabinet. It contained decades of my life. The remnants of the years I spent working as a reporter, consultant, and trainer.

The filing cabinet had become my nemesis. The symbol of a working life that was coming to an end. Was coming to an end? Or had come to an end? Those of us who worked independently refer to the periods of time we’re not working as being between contracts. Was I between contracts? Or was I now retired?

I had spent endless hours discussing this with people who had already left the workforce. Many conversations focused on finances. How much money was enough? A recently retired friend pointed out, “You have two things: time and money. You might run out of money. But, for sure, you will eventually run out of time.”

That hit home. I finally admitted it was time to let go of a working life that had spanned more than half a century. But there was something I had to do first: empty that filing cabinet and get it out of my office.

Sounds simple. But Sisyphus would understand. Each bulging file folder was like a boulder rolling down the mountain again.

I unearthed documents I hadn’t looked at in decades. Here was one I was writing the morning the unimaginable happened and shattered the ordinary Tuesday I’d planned. I tried to continue to work but couldn’t stop myself from constantly tuning into newscasts. None of us will forget where we were that day — 9/11.

There was plenty of evidence from other chapters in my work life. Training material I’d designed before technology transformed everything. Printed workbooks and overhead projector slides. Artifacts from a previous century.

Another folder contained materials from when I’d been thrown into completely unfamiliar territory. But my client had confidence in me. I learned. We succeeded. Together, we’d travelled across the country, sharing knowledge, building something we hoped would last.

Then there were the photographs scattered through the files, of times when work had taken me to places I never thought I would visit, doing things I couldn’t have imagined. Each image a reminder of how work had shaped not just my days, but my life.

I found souvenirs from distant places where work had taken me, bringing back memories of being the outsider, of seeing the world through different eyes, of understanding what it meant to be the ‘other’ in a room. Those lessons stayed with me long after the contracts ended.

The excavation continued day after day. Forget about retirement. This had become a full-time job. Almost every object I touched as I pulled folder after folder from the filing cabinet was a decision. Keep? Toss? Give away? Shred? It took weeks—okay—months, to get through it all. My shredder was on the brink of a complete burnout. I wasn’t. I thought. But reviewing years of work-related material was more emotional a task than I’d imagined it would be.

I was travelling through time. Reaching through to the past. Pulling it out, bit by bit, and looking at it carefully. I remembered people and times I hadn’t thought of in years. Including some that I would prefer to forget.

Finally. The filing cabinet was empty. I tried selling it. I tried giving it away. No takers. It finally went out to the curb. I watched the guy who drives around on garbage day collecting metal, as he tossed it, unceremoniously, into the back of his pick-up truck and drove away. I felt liberated.

I was finally free to recreate that room where I’d spent so many hours of my life. I removed everything that reminded me of work. I vacuumed. I dusted. I moved furniture around. I lit sage and lemongrass and performed a solitary smudging ceremony, concentrating on what I wanted this space to be.

It would no longer be an office. It would be my studio, where I would write, work on my photography, and read.

I have time to do that, now. I’m retired.