Clocking Out
I retired the last day of 2025 after 32.5 years working to support people with developmental disabilities to get jobs and try to have the lives they want to have. I was lucky enough in my career to be able to pursue all I wanted to do in multiple positions – from a case manager to a vocational coordinator to a project manager. It really was a great way to get to know what the world is about, and to use whatever skills I had to help people often left out of the equation. It dawned on me though that I'm also retiring from close to 47 years of just plain paid work. Almost half a century. I got my first paying job when I was 13. I'm sure most retirees do this: survey their whole work-lives, not just the career part, and try to find the meaning in all that activity, all that dedication to persevering and finding a way to stay sane through it all. Getting a job, for me, was really when I first understood that I could escape my circumstances. I could become a part of something th...