OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: “Yes, but…”

The interjection of an affirmation followed by a conjunction can have multiple, unexpected meanings. Perhaps it is to provide a sharp contrast to a statement previously held and left unchallenged; or to “add” to a declaration thought to be somewhat inadequate and needing an appendage for completion otherwise incomplete or left with a void that could be misconstrued unless filled. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Childhood wishes

We had them; some of us still remember and harbor them like sacrosanct relics of priceless value; and still others know of them and recollect some general idea long forgotten, once delighted in, but now rotting in the vestiges of abandoned buildings hollow but for the frame that haunts in the midnight moon.  Wishes remain throughout one’s life, whether in the stage of adulthood or old age; but it is the childhood wishes one remembers that reveal the empty soul of what one has become, […] Read More …

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Turning back the clock

How many of us would want that opportunity, and more importantly, for what reasons?  Is it to correct the remorse of thoughtless acts perpetrated in another stage of life, when youth or desperation compelled motives and intentions otherwise relegated as an anomaly but for the justification of necessity by situational relativity? […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: The Trail of Tears

History is replete with the metaphor of maltreatment; it is the silent graves that cannot speak, anymore, which haunts a nation’s soul. It is a reminder, of sorts; a way of understanding and revisiting the history and essence of a nation – of the westward expansion and the decimation and systematic thievery against a civilization that was doomed from the start. But trails soon get overrun by either settlements or city construction; and tears quickly dry up so that the agony of a peoples once felt become a mere memory told in narratives and tales by old men and forgotten women who no longer matter. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The end of Act I, Scene I

Whether it is in some obscure off-Broadway play, or in a Shakespearean tragedy presented with lavish costumes and elaborate affectations, the end in Act I, Scene I sets the stage for the narrative following. Yes, yes – one can argue that there are “other” scenes, acts, pivotal moments and significant slices which also formulate the argument for such commanding cohesion in a story; but that misses the point – for, if everything is relevant, then nothing is important; and if nothing is important, then it negates the pointing out of relevance itself. The great Chekhov is the one who pointed out that, if you are going to introduce […] Read More …

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Understanding

The Master asks one of his two dogs, “Where is ___?” If the second pet wags her tail, looks quizzically at the owner, then proceeds to go to the far end of the next room and locates the wandering misfit and barks to you that she has found him – do we disbelieve? If the same question were to be asked of one’s child in reference to a sibling, and the identical result occurs where the first child goes into another room or runs up into the attic and locates the lost soul, would there be any doubt? […] Read More …

FERS Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: Examples

What if we never grew up with any? Is it not by metaphor and analogy that we all escape the citadel of ivory towers and the dangers of glass barriers and unseen traumas? They tell us that the early years of “imprint” are crucial for stability, development and self-discipline against asocial behaviors; yet, even after the crucial years following the correlation subsequent to the first encounter with the world, and just before the turmoil of puberty and into adulthood, there are indicators that failure of examples to take hold can still be corrected in order to prevent the ghastly concretization of personality misfits, where pathological deviancy may yet be avoided. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Trading places

Long before the 2008 debacle of economic turmoil; preceding epic movies following, of the lavish ineptitude of miscreants awash in money’s sale of souls in exchange for the temporal pleasures of limitless fantasies; when laughter could be heard yet, because the future still held some hope, there was a movie by the same title. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Masking of Fate

It is still perhaps appropriate at the time of this writing, to consider masks and costumes, as Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve lingers is just over. It is a celebratory time; and whether of religious significance or origins discovered in the medieval Gaelic folklore long lost but in remaining songs and ballads sung sweetly without instrumentality or electronic mixing, the tradition of putting on a disguise, concealing one’s face with a mask of another’s soul continues. It is doubtful that the meaning behind such traditions are ever discussed or believed in; […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: A break from the quotidian

Is there ever a release from the commonplace? We take it so for granted – those mundane occurrences of daily living – until the greater pain of life’s misgivings overwhelm and supersede. The quotidian is a fancy term for the everyday; that routine which we engage in from the moment our eyes open, the sleepiness is cast aside, and the feet are sheathed into slippers or socks, or perhaps not at all; and all that was just described, as well, constitutes the quotidian. […] Read More …