2020-MOC#17_Hindsight_web
mcurtt, Jan 17, 2020
- Description:
- 541 words
M3 December 2019 Main Kit, M3 January 2020 Main Kit.
Journaling reads:
I am currently at 17 months post retirement and couldn’t be happier. After working for the same employer for 45 years, I definitely had separation anxiety, definitely thought that I should wait until I was 66, or even older, before I retired. My coworkers didn’t make it any easier. They would always comment that I would be bored with no job, that John and I would get into disagreements being around each other 24 hours a day. As I began reaching the age of Medicare and Social Security, I told my director that I was looking to leave by January 2019, putting me at 65+ years of age. We were moving toward a new software platform at work, go-live was July 1, 2018, and I just did not want to be involved in another conversion. I had my share of late nights and constantly being on-call. But John was ready for me to leave. He had been driving me back and forth to work (I’m not much of a driver...), all of my working years. For the last 25 years, it has been a 64 mile daily trip in the car. It was hard on him, it was hard on the car. So I moved up my date, putting it at August 31, 2018. By that time, the new software would be up and running, I would celebrate my 45th anniversary with the company and I would have turned 65. I would be eligible for Medicare, insurance coverage that would be my safety net should something happen if I needed medical care. And I don’t know why, but my director was shocked when I told her at the beginning of June that I was retiring on August 31. Regardless on September 1, 2018, I became a woman without a career, a woman who no longer had to set an alarm, someone who didn’t have to travel to the city every day, a woman who no longer stressed out, was not totally exhausted. I no longer had a compulsion to make my weekends count with a flurry of chores and no time for fun. The first few months of retirement felt like I was on an extended vacation. I friended my coworkers on Facebook, we chatted on the phone occasionally. But I found my new groove, still waking insanely early, sitting in the dark, sipping my tea, listening to podcasts or watching scrapbooking process videos on you-tube, waiting for John to wake. Then together we watch reruns of Perry Mason, Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, Murder She Wrote. Sometimes we make ourselves a hot breakfast, grain-free goodies that used to be reserved for my days off: waffles, pancakes, cheese Danish, French toast. We laugh, we dance, we sing, we enjoy each other’s company. We work out in the yard, I feed my birds and squirrels, I walk out to the mailbox to pick up our mail, we occasional go out for lunch, we check out antique shops, we see movies. I seriously don’t know where the time goes because I feel busier than before, but in a much more relaxed way. Had I known retirement was this much fun, I would have done it 45 years ago.
Laugh out loud! Yes, hindsight is 20/20.
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- Category:
- Month of Challenges 8
- Uploaded By:
- mcurtt
- Date:
- Jan 17, 2020
- View Count:
- 257
- Comment Count:
- 6
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