It's Been a Year

One year since a budget squeeze 'released' me from my role with my denomination. Forty years after I had started with them.

Those few weeks before my 65^th birthday rapidly ushered me into a ‘retirement’ transition.  I had mused about it before, but was faced head on with defining the next phase of life.

True to the insights I gained from readings on ‘retirement’ and friends who had gone before, adjusting to what’s next takes longer than you anticipate.  I am still curating my new life, and I am giving my self grace and time to do so.

Here are some musings from the process so far.  You may be in a similar space, or heading into it, or wondering about it.  In no way is this prescriptive.  It’s my story.  But maybe it can help spark some reflection for you.   

I love change.  It marked my career. I think I was good at it personally and leading it organizationally. However, after 40+ years of employment and multiple role changes within my career, adjusting to this reality at 65 + is a completely different game. It’s exciting and it sucks all at the same time. 

Here is what I have to say about this transition ‘game’ so far.

Identity: My identification with a particular role/persona within an organization is gone.  It’s history. Not coming back. Have to move on.  And it’s best to move on.  The temptation is to do things to perpetuate it in some fashion.  To keep the connection (and identity) by getting a similar job or contract.  That’s not wrong at all, but it holds the potential of delaying your journey of new discovery.

Relationships: My circles have radically changed. The relationships developed during that career, while not all lost, are no longer a locus for connection.  Those friendships were developed in the context of our mutual connection to the organization and/or the teams I worked with.  But for the most part they are not enduring friendships.  Outside of work, what tied us together?  That is not to say that they weren’t meaningful friendships.  In my case they went deep.  We shared a lot of life together.  It was a culture we deliberately nurtured.  If we met up again, we’d have a wonderful connection. But to be honest, once I was released and out of sight and mind, it has been ‘crickets’ (admittedly that runs both directions!)  Many had warned me about this reality.  It’s still a shock to the system.  So, the ‘what’s next’ is to renew and develop the kind of friendships that are connected not through career, but in the simple approach of: “hey, I like you for you”.

Status: To be honest I am struggling a bit with not being a core player in an organization/team.  That recognition and responsibility is gone.  Who I am is noticed by fewer and fewer people.  Unless I choose to do something that puts me in the public eye, my circles are getting smaller.  I am getting a grip on that, learning to accept it and be content to live and act well in that space.

Purpose: I am busy.  During this past year I renovated our basement and then launched an Airbnb.  Took a month-long trip with my wife to Europe. Started a Renovation/Handyman business.  I am an active board member of our community association.  I happily shuttle between kids and grandchildren across 2 cities.  What I am working through is what now ties everything together. Perhaps it’s a ‘purpose’ thing.  I like what I do, but at times it feels like I am pulling on various cords.  Do they need to tie together?  Does that matter? It must because I am writing about it. It has been interesting to me to realize that as much as we are told to NOT make our career the core of our purpose and identity, inherently that career holds more meaning for us than we may acknowledge.  That’s not surprising, for often we chose to maintain and build that career because it fulfills a purpose for us.  The challenge of forced or unforced retirement is to discern how to keep living with purpose outside of a regular job.  I’m getting there.

Career change: My primary paid professional career is OVER.  However, health permitting, I have the future prospect of 10-30 years of living.  Will I just fill the time, or have it move in a direction that is meaningful, and joy filled?  I no longer have an organization in and through which to express meaning. That doesn’t mean there still isn’t multiple ‘careers’ though which to express myself.

So – some musings along the way.  As I mentioned in a previous blog written during one of my mid-career transitions, new thinking must take place when you are landing the career plane vs. taking off.

Just don’t switch your life to auto-pilot.

 

Harv

The Unsettled Grief of Job Loss

I was let go/released from my organization last December.  Budget cuts. At my age, people assume I have retired.  I have not. Trying to counter that narrative is getting tiring.

But something else is more tiring.

The grief process.

A few days ago in my journal I wrote how I felt settled that I don’t yet know the future.  This morning’s entry was different.  I feel purposeless.  At times I’m distant and indifferent to people, to ideas and to the future.  Executing on the things I love and have planned for are getting to me.  My wife & I have been planning a trip to Europe for 4+ years and are in the throes of finalizing the details now, but it feels like an obstacle instead of a joy.  Anyone who knows me knows I love renovating things, but the renovation I am doing in my basement, though 95% done, now feels like a drag.  Adding to the darkness is the thought that after the trip and after the reno, then what??  I want to interpret all this as part of the emotional journey after a ‘release’.  I hope that’s all it is because I feel like I am losing something of my self.

I only see shadows of a future.  Clarity is clouded by grief.  We all face loss and grief from multiple sources. Grief is a loss of a locus for our love and attention.  Whether it’s a dream, a person, an expectation or a hope, the grief we carry is love/purpose which now has no place to go.  It’s not so easy to find a new destination for that love.  In some cases, it can be redirected to find some satisfaction in a new dream, job, circumstance or relationship.  As the scripture says, we may cry for a night, but joy can come in the morning when the sun rises on a new day for us.

However, there are some losses you simply will carry. Always.  Over time you figure out how to deal with that extra weight in your backpack.  How you carry that load of grief will define you and make you.  In terms of my job loss, I realize I have several options for how I carry it:

• Be angry (that way my grief has someplace to go!).
• Be depressed and despondent at my situation.
• Believe I am to blame, that somehow, I failed or didn’t measure up.
• Question my identity.
• Jump into something just to fill the void.  
• Suck it up.
• Stay in it.

Stay in it?  Yes.  I need to bear the load and feel the feelings.  It’s unlikely I will emerge into what’s next without taking that journey.  There is something about the journey itself that is as redemptive as the eventual outcome. We love redemption stories.  Most however have a plot line of grief and suffering, of bearing a burden.  The Biblical story of Ruth is a wonderful redemption story, but it is laced with, and she is defined by, her endurance of the significant loss of a husband, of children, of status and protection.

I am realizing how the journey is the thing.  That’s not the answer I necessarily want.  Yet the answers for my ‘what’s next’ are in the journey itself.  To find ways to bypass the process is to cheat my future self.  So, I need to keep going, and keep doing what I can to cope, to clarify, and to survive.  Be in the moment and let the moment carry me where it will.  Today is my ‘moment’.  Gotta just pick up that backpack and walk.

“My vision is blurred by grief.

My eyes are worn out because of what opposes me.

To all the things seemingly opposing my future and fulfillment, I wish you’d just go away!

Yet I remind myself there is a Creator who sees my grief.

That Creator pays attention and hears my pleas.

There will be a path that emerges from this.

Creator, help me take notice.”

(My translation of Psalm 6:7-9)

 

Harv

My Last Day

Dec 8, 2023 is my last day as an employee of The National Ministry Centre of The Alliance Canada. I have served in numerous roles within this faith community since Sept 1983. 40 years. Most recently as Strategy Director for Marketplace and International Churches. This isn’t a retirement. I intend to keep working. It’s a release due to significant budget constraints the organization faces. The processing of this has taken me through many emotions, all typical of an unanticipated transition. I wish the ending of this part of my career was different, but it is my reality now.

However, a budget cut isn’t going to be my story. While it is the organizations' story, here is mine: 

I have been privileged to have a ministry career where I could develop and then utilize my skills in facilitation,coaching, leadership and program management. It has enabled me to serve on a global stage and according to who I am. What an uncommon joy to be able to leave while living the optimal experience of vocational & personal convergence. I also leave a high functioning, committed and ‘’real’ team that has exemplified true servant leadership. So, if a person must ‘go’, it’s a great way to go. 

There are many ideas to sort through and untangle on the path to creating what’s next for me. However I have no immediate career plans except to finish my basement renovations, enjoy some family time, and take along-delayed anniversary trip with Becky. Together we have travelled the road of transition many times in our lives, and one thing we know – Christ always has a future for us.

A good friend spoke at a retreat I recently attended and addressed the notion of ‘finishing well’. He reminded us that no one knows where the finish line is, or when you will approach it. So then, how do you actually finish well? By finishing today well. If you finish every day well, no matter when the time comes, you have finished well. 

I am content to have finished this part well.

Harv Matchullis