The Stages of Retirement

The stages of retirement:

1) First 30 days : Fuck you, work! Fuck everyone and everything related to work! Screaming “F-U-C-K !” To the universe. Let it all out. Fuck it to “the man”, whoever he is to you. Fuck societal oppression and random people you feel oppress you in all forms, including traffic, annoying relatives, bathing, going to the dentist, dieting, that colonoscopy you’ve been putting off, and standing in lines.

2) First 6 months : Lots of naps, sleeping in, sleeping longer, staying up late, throwing away your alarm clock, taking a break from anything irksome or time consuming, such as social obligations, showering/ baths and hygiene in general, looking at daily chores you need to do to survive and telling yourself, “I can always do that, later....I don’t have to do it, or anything, right now or maybe at all, ever”, purging everything you own that is related to or reminds you of work including but not limited to: work clothing, office supplies, clocks, briefcases/ messenger bags, sensible shoes, motivational “art”, haircuts and hairstyling/ grooming products, makeup, bras, tweezing/ waxing, travel coffee cups.....then expanding this purge mentality to cleaning out your home, top to bottom, and having a series of ever diminishing yard sales of all the junk you’d been meaning to get rid of for decades but were too busy to do it.....along with tiny amounts of guilt at the friends you left behind, the fact that you can retire at all, coupled with immense relief and a strong wish you’d done this much sooner.....

3) First year : I’m gonna do what I always wanted to do, but never had time to do! Who am I ? What are my interests ? What did I enjoy doing as a child? What is something I always  wanted to learn how to do?

New hobbies : above - painting. Below - gardening. 

Garden before ^ and after, \/

4) Second 6 months : I’m going to travel the world! See new places, work through my bucket list, visit all my old friends. You also sign up for everything you ever wanted to do, ever, and fill your life with a new busyness, till a few weeks in to some new commitment, when you are exhausted and stressed out and some of the new bosses you have are jerks just like your old boss and the weather is bad and you ask yourself, why am I doing this? And a “good day / week” is one where you have nothing planned at all, so you start to figure out how to dial it all back.

And that is YEAR ONE.