Is it the Beginning or the End? | Retirement

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity.  The fears are paper tigers.  You can do anything you decide to do.  You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward”.  Amelia Earhart     

June 2018        

I had been thinking about pulling the proverbial pin for the past five or six years after a 37.2-year career. This year it somehow felt like the right time. I am not sure how to explain it exactly - I just had a feeling deep in my soul that it was time to move on.

Being the intuitive person that I am I felt the need to trust and follow this feeling. Making such a life change while not having a clue as to the direction I am being drawn in is taking a huge leap of faith for sure. At the same time though I also feel a sense of excitement about what the future may hold.

I find it very interesting that throughout our working years we dream of the day we can retire and leave it all behind - the early mornings, the cold cup of desk coffee, the quirks of our coworkers, the crappy lunches, the commute, the rushed evening meals, chores and activities. Then when it finally comes time to make the big retirement decision so many of us are terrified of this life change. Familiarity was comforting and easy I suppose change is what is hard.

I ask my recently retired friends what they are up to these days and the response is something vague like “I am living the retirement dream”. What do they mean by that? Seriously, that statement tells me nothing. I imagine each of us thinks the other has all the answers to this next stage of life and that the other person is the one living the dream but in reality, none of us has it all figured out.  We are all stumbling along trying to make the right choices on the fly - or maybe it is just because women at this stage of life really seem to like wine!

The best part of retirement so far is not turning a morning alarm on. I never realized how I dreaded and anxiously anticipated that hideous, demanding sound. To be able to wake up when your body is ready and sit down and enjoy that first precious cup of coffee is truly one of retired life’s small blessings.   

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