Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Intrusion upon the inviolable refuge

Last Updated on December 9, 2015

We all hold, savor and protect them; and whether they are physical escapes, relational interludes or mere cognitive distractions, they are the corners of secluded quietudes which serenely exist in the abandoned crossroads of time, like unbeaten dirt paths down lonely prairies of uncut grass wavering in the morning breeze of timeless passivity.

Perhaps it is watching a favorite television show; or of morning jogs leading to a little-used, covered bridge which tells of whispered pasts, history untold, and marvels unwitnessed but for the overhanging tress which record speechless events; or even the moments throwing a ball with one’s dog, where boundless energy is witnessed and with awe of language bonded by facial licks and warmth of hugs, that timeless memory is captured within the framework of human needs and wants.

The inviolable refuge is the shack we have built, and to which we escape and recede from the problems and complexities of civilization too weighty to bear without.  Those distracting hobbies, of collecting when amassing becomes a fetish, or when childhood dreams never amounted to much but where echoes of angry voices haunting us for innocence extinguished and promises unkept; those are the times when we close the door and lock it from inside, in order to regain the equilibrium lost in the maze of daily clatter.

Medical conditions have an invasive nature to them, where escape can never be completely pursued or accomplished.  Further, when medical conditions begin to invade the capacity of one to escape from the daily toils of the world, and where the universe of struggles becomes too much to bear and the crossing of lines held separate and apart by sheer force of willpower can no longer be rectified, then it is time to take steps to ameliorate the intrusive consequences.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers whose lives become consumed by the tripartite evils of work, medical conditions and the inability to fine refuge away from the creeping tides of problematic struggles, consideration needs to be given to advancing towards another horizon.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS-Offset is a “next-step” reflection for any Federal or Postal worker who has recognized that where a medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, and work therefore begins to intrude upon one’s personal concerns and struggles, then the demarcation between pleasure and pain becomes so confounded that all pathways for the requisite escape begin to close.

Each of us needs a refuge of quietude; and whether such haunts of escapism is satisfied by a quarter placed in a juke box, or travels to exotic destinations whether in physical flight or mental dreams, when life intrudes upon the inviolable refuge of our own creations, it is time to take affirmative steps to proceed and advance, in order to protect those hollow reeds of wavering wants waiting to whisper the sounds of silence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

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