Learning how to be dead so I can be alive

Almost six years ago, I was forced into retirement from a job that I despised. I should have seen it coming, and I should have been elated; I walked away with a great payout: a signing bonus after I'd agreed on the dotted line not to seek employment there again  The four of us who were still left standing when the rumblings of war had appeared in August of 2009 lucked out; in November the union and the board did some outrageous jerryrigging of the seniority language; we were told that by classification, the employees with the highest evaluation scores would be kept on, and those eligible were offered an early retirement package. Having had two successive bosses who marked me down on several points that should never have been on an evaluation, I heard the bell toll for me. To further explain, there was nothing on the form that allowed setting of goals and objectives, discussion of projects completed, and overall quality of work; the ratings were based on personality and ability to adapt to the strange new corporate atmosphere that had gradually spread throughout our organization since the Reagan and Bush years. My "creative" personality fell outside the required curve; others before me felt the plague early and bailed out it they could; this group consisted of people who were more like me. They believed that the mission of a public library was to serve everyone; the New Order's line was, "There are some groups that we just have to leave behind."

I won't go into the details. By now you know it was the library - it was the public library of our city. Currently the building is slated to be demolished because it was discovered that toxic materials from an old factory are leaking into the foundation. Maybe after the building is gone, I can let go. Because since the day I left, I have been plagued several times a week with dreams about continuing to show up for work every day and even perform my job, without pay, knowing I was retired but seemingly accepted as a volunteer. In essence--in those dreams, even though I realize I am retired, I am like a ghost who doesn't know she's dead.

I had the dream again last night, only this time it was different. I met a real ghost in that setting: a former boss who had died from AIDS in 1991. He gently took me aside, in my dream, and told me, "You cannot come here any more. You cannot come into the staff areas. Do you understand?" And then he gave me a train ticket to go to some unknown place, accompanied by his mother,(?) to learn how to accept retirement --- to learn how to be dead.

Postscript: I wrote this a month ago. I haven't had the dream since.