Before It Ends
The Work is ending. The relationship remains.
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.” — Wendell Berry
Before It Ends — What I Will Miss About Working
Years ago I told my son I needed to employ someone I could rely on. He was adamant it was going to be him.
He was right. He has never let me down.
The work will end. I can feel that now in a way I couldn’t ten years ago. But when it does, he will still be there.
I have been thinking about what this working life has actually given me. And the answer is simpler than I expected.
Him. The relationship. The quiet knowledge that we can depend on each other.
That is worth more than anything the work ever paid me.
I know it is coming.
Not today. Maybe not this year. But I can feel the shape of it now in a way I could not before.
And here is what surprises me about that.
I am already missing it. Not after it ends. Now.
I think this is what gratitude actually is. Not the performed version where you make a list of blessings before sleep. The real version, where you feel the weight of something while you still have it.
My body has held together longer than it had any right to
When I think about what decades of concrete work ask of a body, I am genuinely surprised it has given me this much.
Grateful is not a strong enough word. Lucky comes closer.
What the science says about a body that has worked
Hard physical work accelerates cellular wear. The joints carry decades of load. Inflammatory markers tend to run higher in people who have done sustained manual work over a lifetime.
But the same research shows something that surprised me. The cardiovascular system of someone who has worked physically for decades is often significantly stronger than someone of the same age who has not. The muscles retain a functional capacity that sedentary bodies lose earlier.
The wear is real. So is what the wear built.
I feel the aches now in a way I did not twenty years ago. But this body has given me more than I had any right to expect. Those two things are not in contradiction. They are the same honest story.
The tiredness that comes from hard physical work is something the body understands completely. It simply asks to rest. I have always trusted that more than any other signal my body sends.
What the work did to my mind
What I will miss is what the work did to my mind.
When the body is fully occupied something happens to the quality of thought. The anxious part of the mind goes quiet. Not because it is suppressed. Because it is not needed.
I found that state in concrete long before I found anything like it in meditation.
Problems I could not solve sitting still would sometimes resolve themselves in the middle of a pour. Not because I was thinking about them. Because I had finally stopped.
The body thinks. I understand that now.
What comes after
I am not afraid of that transition. Not exactly.
But there will be something to grieve when it ends. The quality of presence that only comes from being completely occupied in the body. The thinking that happened without trying.
Some people reach the end of their working lives and feel only relief.
I think I will feel relief and grief in the same moment. Because it means the work genuinely mattered. Not just as obligation. As a way of being alive that was specific and real and mine.
That is worth grieving when it goes.
And worth being grateful for while it is still here.
My honest assessment: The research on retirement from physical work shows something that surprised me. The people who adapt best are not those least attached to their work. They are those most honestly attached to it. Grief and gratitude for the same thing at the same time is not contradiction. It is how a person knows something was genuinely worth having.
This Week
The work is getting harder. I feel that honestly every day now. But something has shifted, my mind is already quietly moving toward what comes next. Not with dread. With something closer to curiosity.
What are you holding onto, and what are you ready to let go of?
The Perennial — Where longevity science finds inner peace.
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