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Our CAO retired last week after 31 years. There was a retirement party at work and because he was beloved many showed up.
Another former coworker - who really was a curmudgeon and very stressful to work with showed up to the gathering. I could not believe how relaxed he looked. There were no lines in his face and his voice was calm. It was a remarkable change from the interactions I had with him on a daily basis where he was run ragged.
How long did it take you? And did you have to take measures into your hands to rid yourself of the stress?
I smiled all the way to my car on my last day, and the further away I got from work, the less stress I felt. I trained myself to leave the stress behind each and every time I left work. Health care can eat you alive if you don't have some ice water running through your veins. I think the hardest part of retiring for me was slowing down. I was used to life moving very very fast both at work and at home. I actually have time to linger in my chair if I so choose now. Detoxing from all of that nervous energy was the hard part. I always felt like I had to be doing something to not be bored. That took about 6 months before I was comfortable with "just being." Now I worry about being too lazy. I actually slept 8 hours last night. That's a miracle. I was used to living on 4 to 6 hours for decades. I'll be retired for two years next July 31st. Time goes by so fast, sigh. Stress? What stress. Oh wait, the income properties. They will be out of my life in about two more years. They do give me some stress, but only because they interfere with the fun I want to be having sometimes.
After the first couple of weeks when I finally didn't have to stop myself and say I had work the next day. Even now though, after several years of retirement I still get a little bit of the "Monday anticipation" feelings on Sunday evening. When that happens I remind myself there's no work tomorrow and I am very happy.
I have been in retirement for over a year. I enjoyed my work but did have some stressful moments such as trying to overcome technical setbacks or bureaucracy nonsense to deliver a project on time or having to 'executize' reports to the point of removing all salient technical information!
So while I missed my work at time, at the end of the first few months, I felt a sense of relief of not having to write or present monthly reports!
Interestingly enough, last night was the first time that I dreamed about work in retirement. The dream was probably triggered by the fact that I had a restless sleep being awoken several times by my dog. She had her leg amputated last Tuesday and has to wear a collar. She kept moving around the room finding comfortable spots, making noises with her plastic collar banging against the furniture. Between sleep periods, I stayed awake thinking about all the things that I have to do, a habit I had while working. The early morning awaken periods were when I was most productive with project planning, problem solving, coming up with ideas etc.
The dream I had before my final wake up was that I was at work pondering the fact that why I was still working in spite of having planned to retire months ago. In the dream, I remembered that I had planned to quit last July, somehow it got delayed to October, December and now it was scheduled for April this year all because of my project requirements. There were several critical phases which I wanted to complete. I made a resolution that there would be no more delays but was hit with a huge concern that without continuing working, I would not be able to complete my dissertation and may never get my degree. I woke up with the realization that I had obtained my degree before working, and I already retired!
The recurrence of my early morning intense thinking period was the explanation for this work-related dream. The dream reminded me of the work 'stress', the obligations, the requirements but underneath was also the sense of fulfillment, of wanting to accomplishing things. Maybe I miss my work more than what I had realized. However, I know for certain that I would not return to my work life.
My last day of doing a ''profession'' that I mostly despised for many years was in January. It was contract piecemeal work that I could do from home and that was about the only reason I tolerated it at all.
Before that I had done some clinical part-time work which ended in 2014 and I said I'd never do that type of work again after many years of misery. And I didn't until this last gig, which I relectantly took for various reasons at the time last spring.
So I'm done with it forever and will truly feel free of it when my professional license is let to expire in about 10 days. THEN I will truly feel ''retired'' in the true sense of the word.
I will know then that I will never ever go back to doing that sort of work again. I wanted to be free of it for such a long time. Actually I think it may take awhile for that to sink in.
The cherry on the sundae will be my first SS deposit in April. Counting down the days on my puppy calendar!
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