The luxury of being 2

Following Frank into Retirement – This is it!

A series of articles starting 5 months from retirement

By Frank

I have 14 working days left before my retirement. A good contact with whom I have worked over the years called me up about doing some consulting in January and February. The work was very similar to my current work and one of the reasons that I’m retiring at age 58 instead of 60 plus. After some sober reflection, I decided that I did not have to do it because I did not want to do it. I thanked him for thinking of me and declined the opportunity. Ahhhhh!

Taking a bow

My company has hired an excellent person to take over my position and my remaining work time is booked with him to ensure a smooth transition between us. Travelling with him has been interesting, in that as he is slowly getting weighed down by my responsibilities, I’m feeling lighter with each passing day.

I’ve also made my last trip to the head office and said farewells to my many friends and colleagues there. Even though my company drives me crazy, I will miss all the great people. The group I directly work with even banded together and bought me the perfect farewell gift. Bagpipes! It feels great to be truly appreciated.

Bagpipes – 1, Frank – 0

Besides a quick honk in my hotel room, I didn’t get a chance to try the pipes out until I got home three days later. It quickly became clear that in the intervening nine years since I last played the pipes I had lost a lot of technique and lip muscle. There were also a million and one things to learn about maintaining my own pipes. I was a little stressed because there wasn’t enough time to practise and the new reeds that I needed would not arrive for a couple of weeks. That is until I realized that the reeds will arrive in time for my retirement and I will have lots of time to practise. At least, when I start playing on my deck, the neighbours will have the benefit of all my practice over the winter.

Expand-a-plan

We had a fun party three weeks ago for Suzanne’s retirement/60th birthday. Friends, neighbours and relatives all came together for some karaoke and appetizers. Suzanne felt that we should also celebrate my retirement in some way. I’m not big on parties so we’ve decided to go to Quebec City for a few days and stay one night in the ice hotel there. Since we’re headed out that way, we’ll see if we can visit friends in Toronto, our son and his fiancée in Ottawa and Suzanne’s brother and wife in Drummondville. On our return to Toronto, we may hop on a plane south if we find a cheap enough last minute package or we may drop in to see our daughter and her partner in Peterborough. Or both. We get to make our plans as we go. What a luxury.

Stay tuned…

It wouldn’t be fair to paint a completely rosy picture of my upcoming retirement without mentioning that I’m still quite concerned about finding time heavy on my hands. I’ve depended on work to fill most of the hours of my weeks. I get antsy if I’m not doing something constructive. Even last Saturday evening, after a very full week of work travel, I found myself at loose ends. This time I was saved by needing to write this blog for Mariella’s newsletter. That in itself was a bit of a revelation, in that there is no reason why I couldn’t continue blogging since it has been enjoyable sharing my thoughts as they bubble up to the surface. I could also try writing something else – it has been probably about half a century since I last did any creative writing (except for funding proposals).
 
So if you’re interested, don’t touch that dial! I’m only too happy to share the angst and joy as my journey into retirement moves into the next phase. Thanks for sticking with me so far.