Freedom I Have Never Known: Ms. Irma Taylor on Life After the Last Shift
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Freedom Files is our interview series. Real people who live on their own clock, telling us what that actually looks like. No scripts, no polish, real people in real places.
“Retirement to me is like a freedom I’ve never known. I can go to bed when I want to go to bed. I can get up when I want to get up.”
“It’s fun to me not to have to ask somebody for permission.”
“I just wish everybody could enjoy this.”
Ms. Irma Taylor, Wise Man Brewing
For the first conversation, Jabari met Ms. Irma Taylor at Wise Man Brewing in Winston-Salem. She wore the NO 925 tee. She earned it the long way: a full working life, then the day the schedule finally belonged to her.
The conversation
Jabari: Ms. Irma Taylor, what is it that you do?
Irma: Well, Jabari, I am a retired person.
Jabari: How do you enjoy retirement?
Irma: It's wonderful. Retirement to me is like a freedom I've never known. I can go to bed when I want to go to bed. I can get up when I want to get up. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm not freaking out about having to get up and be at work at seven o'clock and being tired.
Jabari: And this is what a freedom lifestyle looks like to you?
Irma: Yes. And it's a lot of fun to be able to schedule things, not around a work schedule. It's fun to me not to have to ask somebody for permission for certain days off and then just wait until they tell me, sorry, somebody else has those days, you can't have them. So to me, the freedom lifestyle is wonderful, and I just wish everybody could enjoy this.
What stays with us
Nobody in this conversation quit anything. Ms. Taylor worked her years and came out the other side describing freedom the same way our community does: your sleep is yours, your calendar is yours, and permission is a word you stop using. That is the whole brand, said better than we usually say it.
New Freedom Files conversations land here as we film them. If there is someone whose story belongs here, tell us at crew@no925.co.