Retirement
“Retirement is like a long vacation in Las Vegas. The goal is to enjoy it the fullest, but not so fully that you run out of money.” — Jonathan Clements
Today was my mother’s last day of work. Forever.
Wow. I’m sure she’s feeling it more than I am but I simply can’t wrap my brain around being completely done with work for the rest of your life.
No more alarm clocks. No more rush hour traffic. No more stressing out about pleasing management or getting laid off. No more meetings, TPS reports, memos or e-mails. No more annoying co-workers. No more dress code. No more corporate nonsense or politics. No more cubicles. No more micro-management. No more being a “team-player”, “proactive” or any other nonsense that some drone made up to impress management. No more. Ever.
How cool must that feel? Freedom. For the rest of her life.
She’s already planning a trip. She leaves Saturday morning to visit her mother. She’s not sure how long she’ll stay. It doesn’t matter because she will never again have to worry about running out of vacation time!
This quote is fitting because Vegas is her happy place. She can go whenever the hell she wants for as long as she wants, provided that she doesn’t run out of money of course.
I’m happy for her. Really happy for her. She so deserves this. I’m happy that she got the opportunity to do it and didn’t work herself into an early grave. She is was the hardest working person I know. She didn’t leave early, or even on time today! Yes, she stayed late on her very last day of work to finish up whatever she was working on. I imagine that if I ever get to retire that I’ll be literally throwing important papers around and telling off anyone that ever got on my nerves even once. She worked late.
Anyway, that’s all over now. I can delete her work number from my cell phone. I hope she takes the time to enjoy the little things in life that we so often miss out on rushing to and from work and spending such huge chunks of our lives there. I hope she can relax and just be. I hope she has fun. I hope she’s available for a lot more babysitting! :)
Thanks for stopping by!
Ah, freedom. Glorious freedom. Hubby would love to win the lottery so he could quit. But he wouldn’t stay late. He’d be singing “Take this Job and Shove it.”
Good for her!
We planned for retirement at 62 and thanks to the economy and the market we are not going to be able to for a lot longer than we planned. So kudos to your Mom.
That’s awful! Unfortunately, it’s pretty common these days. I’m sorry to hear it happened to you.
i am so excited for your mom! i hope she gets to be in charge and do anything she wants, and follow her own rhythm now that she has been let loose
and i will keep my fingers crossed about that babysitting — when my in-laws retired, they actually became less available because they were too busy trotting around the country visiting friends and going to all those places they always wanted to go!
A whole new chapter of life yet to explore. It sounds like she’s adjusting really well. Isn’t it wonderful to hear her say she has no idea of when she’ll be back.
I hope she’s the luckiest girl in Vegas.
yay for your Mom (but I wish it was me!)
Yeah for your mom!! I think I would exit gracefully like she did though. What if I spent all my money in Vegas and needed to go back to work??? Wouldn’t want to burn that bridge:)