Retirement Ahoy!

If retirement* is an ocean voyage, then I have just passed the planning/financing stage and have hired the deck crew.

Sorry for that horrible metaphor, but I just couldn't think of a nautical pun that involved something besides seamen.

(See the first post for the beginning of this tale:  A New Path)

Yesterday I told my workplace that I'm leaving in January.

So far I've only told my head supervisor, and she took it well, and in a month or so we're hiring someone for me to train as my replacement.  As an added bonus, once the new person is trained enough I may be able to have regular hours instead of the usual 10+.  I still have to tell my coworkers, but the initial part is done, and the plan is officially rolling into motion.

This thing is happening!

Whoa, emotions.

I feel 40% serene, 20% ecstatic, 15% giddy, 10% weightless (seriously, I haven't stood this straight in ages), and 15% nervous.  Funny that the nervousness is there, considering that by the time I leave I will have been trying to quit for 2 full years.  Ah well, big life changes are always... change.  My aspie-like nature has always resisted change, so it has taken a huge leap of courage to make the final decision to go.

I would just like to take this moment to thank Poseidon, god of turbulent, strong, conflicting primal emotions. 

The wait is... more tolerable.

Considering approved vacation time and such, I just have 3.5 more months!  Seems so much more manageable than when I was at 6 months.  And having an extra person to share work responsibilities with should lighten the load a bit.

I must already be feeling the effects, and there must be extra joy in my heart, because my husband says he has not seen me laugh so hard in at least 2 years.  Well, to be fair, I was watching a somewhat crude music video of a song called Work It, and it is exactly the kind of non-sexy detail-oriented lyrics I would have written for a sexy song... I just lost it at the "bacterias" line.

Take it from a soon-to-be-former microgarden curator, "bacteria" is already plural.




*At age 32 it's not technically retirement, but I will get a small retirement benefit after working there for 11.1 years.  I like calling it that, it is amusing to me.