A month ago I had my first physical therapy appointment with Ken, a young man who radiated competence and emotional distance in equal measure. He handed me a list of exercises, told me to perform them three times a day, informed me that surgery was unlikely, and ushered me out like a man closing a file. Efficient. Impersonal. I assumed that was just his professional style.
Yesterday I saw him again, and the man had apparently been replaced by his more human twin. He was warm, chatty, and openly exhausted—in the specific way that only new fathers can be. Suddenly his earlier aloofness made sense. That first session wasn’t clinical detachment; it was sleep deprivation in a polo shirt. This time he walked me through a new routine using resistance bands anchored to my bedroom door—pec flys, side laterals, posterior delts, the whole greatest-hits album of shoulder rehab. Best of all, the new program comes with mercy: once a day, four days a week. A civilized schedule for a man who has already paid his dues.
Then came the good news. Ken tested my mobility and announced I had gained fifty percent in a month. That sentence deserves a parade. He followed it with an even sweeter story: one of his clients suffered a full “100 percent” rotator cuff tear and healed without surgery over fourteen months. I told him that sounded like gospel music to me. Hope, when you’re injured, is a performance-enhancing drug.
While typing up my report, Ken casually asked how I felt about retiring from teaching in eighteen months. I didn’t bother with bravado. I told him the truth: I’m scared. When you spend forty years building a work persona—something that animates your days, sharpens your thinking, and gives your life narrative tension—and then you remove yourself from the stage, you don’t just lose a job. You risk losing your gravity. People love to say they’ll “stay busy” in retirement. But human beings don’t thrive on busyness. We thrive on stakes. Without them, we drift. Not into disaster—into comfort. Into pleasure. Into slow-motion decay fueled by snacks and streaming services.
I’ve tested the volunteer fantasy already. Years ago, after adopting a rescue dog, I thought volunteering with the organization would be meaningful. Instead, I found myself sitting in front of a pet store in Redondo Beach on a Saturday, surrounded by wonderful people and feeling absolutely unnecessary. They were kind. They were earnest. I was bored out of my soul. The group’s founder, Cathy Rubin—a therapist with X-ray vision—took one look at me and said, kindly and accurately, “Jeff, this isn’t for you.” She was right. I kept donating. I never went back to volunteer. Not everyone is wired for sainthood.
So yes, I’m scared of retirement. I’m scared of my own antisocial tendencies, my talent for isolation, my ability to rationalize entropy as “well-earned rest.” I’ll keep writing. I’ll make the occasional YouTube video. I’ll perform small acts of public presence. But I know the truth: I’m going to have to fight like hell to stay alive in the deep sense—not breathing, but burning. Because entropy doesn’t kill you in one blow. It kills you in installments.
Cinemorphosis 
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