EAST HADDAM, Conn.

THE RUMORS of my imminent demise were not greatly exaggerated. I had heard them for weeks from my sources in cubicles, service corridors and supersized offices. In an annual job-performance review many years ago, authored by a boss I would easily outlast, I was accused of being lazy and a gossip. I had objected, averring that I was, in fact, an energetic nosy Parker.

Still, when the ax fell, I was not ready. Outwardly calm, I failed to project the desired air of jauntiness as my three alleged superiors gave me the official word. I had so wanted to be a smiling George Clooney, merely amused by impending catastrophe. I sat there tightlipped and took my medicine. I asked a few questions just to show that I could talk, that I wasn’t afraid, which, of course, I was.

Fifteen years and out on the street, or at least back in my house, where previously I had worked for a decade as a freelance writer. At the first whiff of doom, I had begun planning for the rest of my life, and already had a few irons in the fire. But 15 years is a big chunk of your life to leave behind in a day. There wasn’t time to say goodbye properly to many of the people I would miss. A few threaten to take me to lunch. Teddy, a security guard, suggested we go fishing sometime. I agreed in principle, though I don’t own a rod and reel. Despite all that, I feel like the sole survivor of some lethal disaster. Mostly they are all gone now, including those who left before me.

Freelance journalism is not exactly a growth industry, and at 59 my job prospects are challenging in the area where I live, in this economy. As I sat alone at the computer, it soon became viscerally apparent to me that it takes two to gossip.

In the mid-1950s my father lost his job shortly after we had moved from Connecticut to Long Island to be near his new but soon to be former employer. Of us five boys, only the oldest, Michael, figured it out, and he was sworn to secrecy by my parents.

No matter how you spin it, there is an element of shame attached to losing your job, even today, when shame seems so passé. No doubt my father also wanted to shield us from the virulent panic that he had to suppress in himself. It was then that our stay-at-home mother started selling encyclopedias in the neighborhood and substitute teaching at Huntington High School. My father left every morning at the usual time and returned home in the evening, as always. His former employer allowed him the use of an office to look for a job, and he eventually found a good one.

My mother worked for 15 years as a teacher at a private day school after all of us were well along in our academic careers. Toward the end of her tenure, the new principal decided that she, at age 61, should retire. My mother told him that she couldn’t afford to until she was 62 and eligible for Social Security. The man, who didn’t like her, and whom she in turn disliked, let her teach for another year. Those must have been two fun semesters. She is 97 now, and her dismissal is one of the things she remembers most vividly from her various careers — along with wonderful stories about her very first job, as a rural social worker during the Great Depression. I have not told my mother about my new situation.

Fear is a great motivator, and I’m counting on it in the months ahead. I don’t want to limp into an early, unwanted retirement. On the other hand, I have opportunities that working stiffs don’t.

On the first Monday of my new life, back in September, the little river that bounds our property was swollen from a tropical storm. It was just right. I dove in and starting swimming upstream — actually, swimming in place was more like it. When I got tired of that, I stopped and drifted with the current until a bend in the river afforded an agreeable spot to get out.

David Holahan is a freelance writer who lives in East Haddam, Conn.