I signed up for a Beyond Retirement Release Trek, knowing it would require many attachment deaths without an Outcome Guarantee. I might return to the SurfaceWorld, or I might not: I could Pass To the Other Side. Seated at my Desk, I sense Incoming Danger.
There are many different kinds of Retirement: retiring from a job or career, from endless grief, or from a life of being unheard. Often, there is a change of address, sometimes downsizing—the Unheard zip code changes to a Heard zip code.
The Trek I signed up for involved a Career and Location Change and the gradual separation from Public Influencer and Coach roles. The Public Influencer and Coach Persona needed to let go of the rigid grip keeping him afloat for so long and blend more. That’s when I realized the Inner Zipcode was still stuck in Unheard even though I had relocated physically.
I had to Uncover & Clear many Masking Portals before excavating long-suppressed Unheard Secrets. Who would have known it would take six years, and in the process, I would deep-retreat from the SurfaceWorld into my cottage and writing? Blessed are the characters that lead the way into the Creative Unknown on the Other Side of Limitation.
For example, Rusty, a Shut-in Senior character who, when invited to a Fifty Year High School Reunion, desperately wants to go, but his social bandwidth isn’t strong enough. A classmate suggests he arrive before everyone else to set up a curtained Story Booth where reunion-goers can anonymously tell their many unheard stories, which Rusty, whose identity is undisclosed, will record and use for a fun newsletter narrative blend.
