Here is something nobody tells you about retirement.

You will lose track of the days.

Completely. Entirely. Without apology.

I could not tell you what day it is if my life depended on it. And the strange part? I don’t entirely mind.

When I was a fully functioning workaholic — not yet in rehab — this would never have happened. I had Outlook. My bible. My life manager. My everything.

BIBLE. I do not say this lightly.

Every meeting. Every deadline. Every person. Managed, organized, color coded and accounted for in Outlook. My entire existence lived inside a calendar app.

The first days of retirement without it felt like relief.

That did not last long.

Because here is something I have learned about my brain — it needs tasks to close. It needs the dopamine hit of completion. So when the bible was stored in a drawer for good, I started creating tasks just to check them off.

Enter the iPhone Reminders app.

My new dealer.

There is a little dot that appears when you complete a task.

I live for that dot.

Pathetic? Maybe. But my brain is wired this way. Because I have ADHD.

Yup.

Neurodivergent. That’s the polite way of saying you don’t think like everyone else. Nice rebranding.

And here’s what I can see clearly now with some distance — work used my neurodivergentiness. Yes I invented that word, no I will not apologize. My ADHD made me a superstar at work. Every new crisis, every impossible deadline, every thing dropped on my desk sent my dopamine soaring.

Nobody stopped to say maybe this is too much for one person.

They just kept dropping things.

And I kept catching them.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

A few months before retirement I spiraled into a depression. My doctor finally connected the dots. Medicated me. Told me what had been running my engine all along.

Turns out the superpower had a price.

But here’s the thing about losing track of the days.

It used to happen in January when I was counting every dreaded Monday.

Now it happens because the days feel the same — calm, unhurried, mine.

The calmness is making me forget dentist appointments.

I can live with that.

Because I am free from Outlook.

Free from my performance.

And today — whatever day it is — that is enough.