I retired from the practice of anesthesiology in early 2020, approximately six weeks before the onset of Covid. Like most new retirees, I had no idea how I was going to spend my days. For the first six months, I slept twelve hours a night, in recovery from years of sleep deprivation. I felt both relief and guilt that I wasn’t working then and had no idea how to spend my time. I rode my bicycle mile after mile, hoping to gain clarity.

That first year brought multiple injuries as I recklessly threw myself into projects and sports and a post-professional idleness that I wasn’t ready for. My partner and I welcomed three new grandchildren over ten weeks in three states, so we did a lot of driving and rocking and provided supportive care in the form of smoothies and homemade cookies. I didn’t know where I belonged or what to do with my life (though everyone seemed to have an idea of what they thought I should be doing) and the complicated series of moves I’d undertaken left me wondering….where was all my stuff?

Most physicians fear retirement but there’s no mandatory retirement age and there ought to be. That’s a subject for a blog post in the future but, suffice it to say, I knew I was ready. Could I have worked another 3 years? Yes. Had I begun to notice my own decline in the work environment? Yes. I retired from a job I no longer loved and yet I wasn’t ready to stop working. I suspect that’s incredibly common. The journey to finding out what I wanted to do with my time has involved trial and error but mostly patience. Some self-discovery resulted as well.