This is a work of fiction. Really.

I’ve heard the assertion that all writing is autobiographical, but that’s bullshit. Of course it’s biographical – what else could we be writing about except life? – but it ain’t necessarily auto.

At least the word autobiographical is sensible. All-Greek in origin. Unlike automobile. As a Latin teacher pointed out a couple of decades ago, auto is from the Greek and mobile has Latin for a parent. That’s silly. You might as well refer to a car as an ipse-kinetor.

In truth, writing fiction is a bit like dreaming. Disparate elements come together in surprising ways. It’s only always auto if the author is a raging egotist.

This is fiction. About a woman in her mid-60s taking on retirement. I’ll play her.

I know it’s time to stop the office job. I probably should have done it five years ago, but now is particularly appropriate. For one thing, the practice is dying a natural death, partly because of consolidations in the financial services industry but also because my referral network was always older than me, and they’ve gone ahead into this next phase of life. There are no new clients and the old ones are dying. The office really can’t afford me any more.

But the bigger thing is my disdain for the job. I note that my reaction to a ringing phone is a snarl. My immediate response to an email is resistance. When I travel around town and see the signs of small businesses my strong, almost visceral response is pity for the business owner.

Wow. Time to stop.

And I can do it with some grace. I live in a small house with no mortgage. I have a 401(k) balance. The federal government is depositing money in my checking account, on the first Wednesday after the seventh of each month. I no longer have to earn money.

So why am I so nervous?

I mean, why am I so much more nervous than normal? For I am a nervous person. I found that out when I was 20. I’m not one for letting others define me, but I went through a medical experience then and I still believe the doctor.

I was a junior in college when I was stricken with pains in my right side and the area between my neck and right shoulder. They came and went but when they were present I found it hard to take a full breath.

The student “hospital” (a so-so health center populated by medical people who were convinced that every symptom in any student was a sign of pregnancy or venereal disease) decided I’d had a gall bladder attack and told me to avoid all dietary fat. The pain was so scary I followed that advice. Mostly I lived on dry cereal and skim milk. The symptoms subsided and I lost weight.

My mother didn’t trust the diagnosis. When I came home she took me to an internist and he said if there had ever been a gall bladder issue it would show up on a GI scan. He was flabbergasted that the student hospital hadn’t run what turned out to be a simple, non-invasive test.

My gall bladder was fine. He ruled out other causes. He told me I had a tendency to a spastic colon (now known as Irritable Bowel Syndrome). He said it’s a nervous ailment. He was Jewish, like me, and he acknowledged that it’s as common in our tribe as myopia.

I protested that I’m not nervous. He gave me one of the best lines of my life. “My dear,” he said, “there’s a difference between nervous and hysterical. You’re not hysterical.”

Hah! Well, I learned a few tricks then. Like not to eat when agitated. To avoid drinking liquids while chewing. To be careful around trigger foods (corn, cauliflower). To watch how often I yawn, because yawning can mean swallowing air. Decades have passed, and I’ve never had an attack as bad as that first experience. Sure I poop a lot. Yes I’m often flatulent. No big deal.

And the fact is, there was plenty to be nervous about back in the spring of 1970. My college time was politically turbulent: Stop the Draft, Third World Studies, the Kennedy and King assassinations, and finally, that spring, the US invasions of Cambodia and Kent State. All that amidst the swirl of speech and freedom issues that predated those events. All that plus what must have been my gathering angst about what would come next, in real life, after I finished up at Cal. Sure I was nervous.

And now?

I’m shitting more than normal. Looser than normal. Almost to the point of cough-triggered leakage. That’s not TMI; we have an aging population and will have to start discussing it. The Internet says normal is three times a day to three times a week. We all know three times a week isn’t often enough. Lately I’m counting more like six times a day…

I have miscellaneous torso pains that may be orthopedic but are probably pockets of gas pressing where they shouldn’t. I have little attacks of amorphous anxiety, when I don’t want to sit still and I have no patience with peoples’ comments. I’m often talking to myself, telling myself to be reasonable, listing all my blessings and arguing with myself that I have no worries. WTF is going on with me?

The likely cause is this attempted retirement. I’ve been working in an office for 43 years. This is a big change, and I’m not sure what comes next. If I were diagnosing a friend, retirement would be my number one theory.

Except those sentences don’t ring true. I really think I’m ready. It’s not like I plan to travel or garden or take up bird-watching. I want to write more. Read more. Learn Spanish. I want to get into endocrinology and true nutritional science. I’m not concerned about aimless time.

So what is it? Second-hand social anxiety about my son’s upcoming wedding? I so want it to meet his expectations. An unsettled feeling about my little condominium association? One of our five units is going on the market this weekend, and that’s always disruptive during the sale process and also the getting-to-know-the-new-owner season. And then we have the issue with our oldest member: so far into octogenarian dementia that the whole neighborhood is now waiting for the APS ambulance to take her away for “evaluation,” and get into the bureaucratic process that will result in the sale of her unit.

Yeah. Those conditions are just part of the richness of life. I don’t think they’re causing my symptoms.

WTF? The best I can go with is just “change.” I never have liked surprises or spontaneity. I always want to grasp the overall plan.

After an adulthood of office work, suddenly I have time. I’m stunned by time. I’ve tentatively renamed my current condition “retimement.”

And I love having time. I’m luxuriating in it. But it’s a big change. Perhaps I’m just going to be unsettled for awhile. What do they call it: the new normal?

Meantime, though, something should be done. I’m not enjoying these anxiety attacks. I remind myself of a provisional adult about to matriculate from college, looking inward and wondering who I am. Just recently I noticed that I don’t like sweets. I never did want the oreo filling. I always preferred the cake to the frosting. I bought carnival cotton candy for my kids but never took any for myself. Don’t hand me a jelly bean or kernel of candy corn unless it’s so stale it’s fun to chew. Almost a year ago I stopped eating sugar and didn’t miss it, but it wasn’t till nine sugar-free months had passed that I understood why it was so easy. I’ve been plugged into food as long as I’ve had an eating disorder; how did I miss that?

It seems like I’ve always wondered if my acts are age-appropriate. And that’s continuing. It doesn’t seem age-appropriate to have identity questions at 66.

Then again, what do I know? I read somewhere that, when psychologists asked subjects to imagine themselves in the future, the “stranger” areas of the subjects’ brains started firing. The shrinks concluded that a person’s older persona is an alien as far as the present-day persona is concerned. Well, where’s the line? Maybe there’s a band of middleness between my knowledge of myself now and my ignorance about my future character. Maybe life transition is a period of acquaintance with a beloved stranger.

Probably I just need time.

That’s a relief. Because I don’t want to start the search for a good therapist any more than I want to try for Internet romance.

But I have to do something.

I think I’ll look into meditation.