AD to AR
My pastor likes to say that there was an event in history- Jesus’ birth- that split the world calendar between BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domino “in the year of the Lord”). However I now have a new personal delineation of my life’s passage through time. My calendar has gone from AD to AR- After Retirement.
It is this new change that I now chronicle. My AR (After Retirement)- began in 2020. It was a time initially marked by the global impact of the Covid 19 pandemic. The onset of the covid 19 epidemic actually was the catalyst that caused my struggling airline employer to offer retirement packages in the first place. The economy was in covid tatters, and my airline was struggling to stay alive when their flight schedules plummeted to near nothing with drastically diminished customers. Twenty percent of their workforce- 18,000 employees- took the package deal they offered. So I joined with the other departing workers- becoming anonymous departing employee number 7,892 (or maybe it was departing employee 16,340?)- and became an officially retired person.
So 2020 became my AR (after retirement) year. AR split my personal calendar into two parts forever, just like the BC to AD time designations did for the world. 2020 AR.
