So I think I might shift gears a little here. As many of you know—and if you don’t, I’ll tell you again—I had a stroke a little over a year ago. Things were already going poorly in my career, and that was the moment I realized why I had been struggling so much in the months before.

It wasn’t a massive, life-altering stroke, but it was still significant. It was only discovered because I was having cognitive changes and ended up getting an MRI, which revealed a fresh stroke less than two hours old. I was admitted overnight for a battery of tests and observation, and the next morning, the team determined I was stable enough to go home.

For many of you, this is old news. But what came immediately after is what changed my life. At my boss’s suggestion, I filed for immediate disability retirement. He told me that if I couldn’t safely perform my job, retirement was the logical step—especially given the looming challenges I was already facing. So, overnight, I went from being on FMLA to officially retired. No long goodbye, no farewell tour—just done.

Here’s the thing: even in your late 50s, the concept of retirement can feel bizarre. Part of me still doesn’t believe I’m fully an adult (stop laughing, all of you). Years of being in the Army left me accustomed to structure and being told what to do. The idea of being retired felt alien, like I hadn’t earned the right yet. And yet, here I was—retired, whether I believed it or not.

That began a steep and strange learning curve: what does a retired person actually do all day? I knew some people had grand plans—RV trips, world travel, remote cottages. Me? I had planned to work at least another five or six years. I didn’t have a roadmap for this new reality. In some ways, the shift into retirement was as significant as becoming a widow the year before. Both forced me into unfamiliar territory, both left me trying to rebuild a life without a plan.

The hardest part was independence. Stroke recovery is unpredictable, and in those first months, I was terrified of how long I could remain self-sufficient. Honestly, I’m still concerned sometimes. The fear softened as I made small improvements and learned adaptive skills, but it never completely disappears.

One lesson that hit hard was watching myself mirror my mother’s last years. She, too, minimized her difficulties because she wanted to protect her independence. I used to get frustrated with her for not being honest about her health—but then I caught myself doing the same thing. Loss of independence is terrifying. You either work to appear better, push to get stronger, or you cover it up and hope no one notices. My mom did that until it nearly killed her. After a bad fall, she developed compartment syndrome in her thigh—a complication that marked the beginning of her decline. We saw it, we knew it, but her resistance to giving up independence drove much of her struggle.

Empathy is a bitch. In one year, I gained two forms of it I never thought I’d know: empathy for substance use (after my own struggles) and empathy for hiding disability (after my stroke). Neither lesson was easy, but both left me changed. Understanding doesn’t make it less painful—it just means I now recognize the same patterns in myself that I once judged in others.

And maybe that’s what this phase of life is about: learning the hard lessons, facing your fears, and admitting that independence—while precious—is not the same as invincibility.

Your dog’s and your mother’s love are the only thing that is invincible.