Decision Day

To INFINITY and BEYOND!

When do you know?  I have asked this question many times over the past few years.  As one by one friends and family members retired, I waited for an opportune moment and then quizzed them.  Great answers one and all!  But no one could tell me when I should retire!  If you know me well, you will know that my laptop is filled with worksheets and numbers - almost as full as my head is!  I played games with crazy numbers that jumped all over the place - escaping from my spreadsheets, hiding in the tool bar on the screen or bouncing off face book pages or other blogs with similar topics.  I inhaled gargantuan meals of information that gave me mental indigestion and insomnia!  But slowly, I was able to bring order to my thoughts and corralled those numbers into logical columns.  Now, only the occasional one creates a hiccup!  

A close friend and colleague advised me last year at her retirement party that retiring is like planning to have children - if you wait until you can really afford them you will never have any!  I took that to heart and incorporated a more realistic equation into my spreadsheets!  This winter I spoke to a new acquaintance and asked my "question".  She was wise in hind sight and indicated she knew when she felt she had reached the top of her career and her future role was shaping itself through family and life events.  I added that into the calculations and finally my spreadsheets started to make more sense.  With a little more fine tuning and a majorly freezing winter nipping at my nose and toes month after month, and the decision became a reality.  I breathed deep, re-read my letter of resignation over and over and took the leap.  Four months and I will be sitting on the beach, digging in the sand, sipping the local wine and checking out the seniors recreation centre in the sunny Okanagan! 

I did not have that final piece of the puzzle until a few weeks ago - funny how the last piece falls into place when the timing is sorted out.  Once again, the exceptionally cold winter held some sway in the timing!  So now this - my LAST Q3.................

.....can become this - summer in the vineyard! 

AND THIS!

WATCH MY COUNTDOWN BEGIN!

Just Up Ahead

Retirement used to be just over the next mountain, then it became just around the next curve.  Now I can see the sign post just up ahead.  My problem is that I am bouncing around on the details: when and where.  I have accepted soon!

In a previous post, I indicated YES, we were going to stay put, renovate, and live out the remaining years on the prairies.  Now? well, now that we have been living through -27 temperatures, we are thinking NO, let's look at something warmer.  Sigh.

I so relate to the 18 year old graduating from high school with parents and grandparents breathing down his or her neck - now what?  college? university? employment?  No wonder they retire to the basement and surface with backpack in hand and the graduating cash gifts going toward six months in Thailand.  Coming to terms with retirement is a lot like that.  There are so many scenarios to choose from - the decision is a life changing one and at this end of your life, there aren't too many do-overs available!

Narrowing it down to the important things helps somewhat - once the survival questions are addressed!  Now you may ask yourself if there is a backpack sitting in my front entry and cash stuffed in my pockets and I would have to say, not yet.  But if you checked my laptop you would find the www.mls.ca site has been visited quite often and the "favorites button" is flashing.  Excitement has replaced the fear I struggled with over the years - now I know I have enough to live on and even enough to travel a little - my eyes are focused forward and anticipation is building!

Tipping Point

I have been around and around these questions: 'What will retirement look like? Where will we live? and what will I do with all of those hours that will no longer be filled up with students and teachers and excel spreadsheets?'  I have also wondered, 'When will I know?'

I spoke with a lovely and wise retiree this past December on a quick foray into a warmer climate and she shared one of those "tipping-point" tidbits that stick in your brain.  I have often quizzed any retiree that has crossed my path lately, and I put my usual question out to her, 'How do you know when it is time?'  She smiled and shared that, for her, it was reaching that point in her career when there were no more mountains to climb.   She felt she had arrived and a new life was beckoning to her with a new role and new experiences. I carried this little bit of observation home with me, back to the winter blizzards, icy sidewalks and my life work.

I measured the distance I had traveled in my career and what was over the current mountain top - all I could see for miles was crystal clear air, blue, brilliant skies and a crisp new page of my life.  In the past, I had already usually filled in a few lines before I took a glance in that direction.  Then, I was well on my way defining the next challenge I would take on, how this program here might be elevated from great to fantastic or that process over there might be made more efficient or effective. I always had a plan brewing before I peaked into the next year.  Not  this year.  I felt like I was standing just below the tip of a ski jump, not yet able to see what lay ahead, not even mapping it out from past experience, but finally, just ready to jump!

The biggest decision was to go for it; the rest of it is the details.  I think the details always preempted the decision before.  A new perspective broadened my horizon - thank goodness for wise women!  So, I am retiring within the year.

The first detail to manage was our living accommodations.   These details have been littering my path for at least three years as I ran the scenarios through my mind, back and forth, here? there? where?  That was then followed by hours of number crunching, thousands of words of discussing and months of thinking.  So, the numbers are crunched and the silence is deafening as the words fall into their slots in the plan for the next five years.

What lies ahead?  Many of you have already arrived and thank you, as you were my best source of data as I mined for guidance.  We have been blessed with a gift I wish I could claim as forethought - one of those, all knowing decisions you make when everyone slaps you on the back for being so brilliant.   Alas, this was more an accident than a plan but when we purchased our small home three years ago, we actually had latched on to a source of income that will hopefully pad the retirement rocking chair somewhat and catapult us off into the rest of the world we so want to explore.  

A year ago, we finished the bottom two levels of our house because it seemed to be a good investment and it would give us the extra room to entertain our large family and the many grandchildren.  Well, the family has spread out across our beautiful country and the grandchildren who are close are not quite as inclined to hang out at Grandma's when it is only a few blocks to go home so, we have finally realized that with a few more dollars, we can change our lovely family room, guest rooms, bathroom and backyard into a rental property that will finance our dreams over the coming years and maybe even provide living space for a live-in caretaker that could keep us out of the nursing home - but that will be in a later plan!

So, now, we are sourcing plumbers and general contractors, cabinet makers and finish carpenters and getting closer to our dream.  With the vacancy rate near 0% in Calgary, I think, it is now or never.  We can at least pay for the small renovations required  and, if it pans out, we will hopefully be able to finance some sunny forays into new countries, cultures and experiences.  Next career - Landlord!  Stay tuned!