It’s been three months now since I retired – even harder to believe than Thanksgiving being just a week and a half away – and I’ve settled into what I consider my “Phase I routine”. That’s mostly been an extended staycation: lots more seeing family & friends, daily walks or bike rides, some online classes, working on hobby projects, reading, some photography fun . . . .This week I also visited family out of state, started learning another generative AI Python framework (LlamaIndex), and dove into another social network (please find me on Bluesky if you’re there!).
Like many retirees, I’m starting to wonder how I ever had time for a full-time job😅.
As the days get shorter, I especially appreciate being able to be outside more during daylight hours when it’s sunny. I almost always took walks while working, too, but usually half an hour at most. Now I have time to go longer, or I can take more than one walk in a day; and if it’s warm enough, occasionally sit outside with a neighbor on a weekday and chat even though it’s November.
Does that sound boring and slow to you? It probably would have to me a couple of years ago. But it doesn’t anymore. And I’m surprised by that.
There are still times when I have the occasional twinge missing my professional identity. I signed up for another conference next month (the free, online PyLadies event), and I had a pang writing in Title: Retired instead of “Director of Editorial Data & Analytics”. But the pangs are infrequent, and they pass. I found myself checking for this month’s salary auto-deposit schedule before remembering, nope, that’s not happening anymore. But so far I’ve been OK following the rhythm of our new financial plan.
My reflexive evening tensing-up about the next day’s work to-do list is less frequent. Retirement is starting to feel like when, after about three days back from a vacation, I’d feel like my previous different routine was already in the distant past. Now, the feeling of so often being on a rigid schedule, even on my days off, is fading. It’s not completely in the rearview mirror yet! But it’s receding. Still, though, every morning I feel very grateful when I remember that my time is so much more my own now..
I expect to start deciding soon what my “Retirement, Phase 2” might look like, and when. Will I start adding any more structure and “productivity” to my weeks? Do some more serious traveling? Try freelancing? Or will I extend this slower way of life significantly further out? I’ve actually thought about a couple of possible article ideas recently – but so far I’m not ready to “work” on them yet.
Time will tell whether those thoughts mean my Phase II will soon include some freelance writing, or they’re just the last gasp of my previous phase – the one when I had a job.
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