Retiring, but not shy

The announcement will go out on Facebook after it goes to the office sometime this week.

I've prayed off and on, for the past several years, to know when it was time to hang up my spurs. The answer came midweek. I was having a spectacularly frustrating day, verging upon a meltdown, because of some tasks that I'd inadvertently neglected that resulted in a terrifying round of emails and IMs from my office manager and our managing attorney.

I've mentioned here the cascade of physical symptoms I've been experiencing over the past couple of years, which resulted in my office manager graciously finding a way for me to continue working and keeping us medicated and fed, not necessarily in that order. Anemia requiring iron infusions. The distressing tendency to fall asleep while sitting bolt upright, but thankfully not while behind the wheel. Behind the wheel, I was consistently blessed to feel it coming on and to enact countermeasures until I was safely off the road.

I've had two lengthy tangos with bronchitis this year, both of which required multiple rounds of antibiotics and/or steroids. The most recent episode took up much of July and was followed almost immediately by my trip to the ER, overnight stay, and Covid diagnosis. I had successfully dodged the pandemic for nearly two and a half years. I finished the last dose of those meds on Friday but am still using my inhaler every four hours as prescribed.

My energy level and focus, as you might imagine, are fluctuating wildly. Twice last week, while working from home, I had to log off and take a nap. I'll be typing along, checking off boxes and updating files, and then I'll hit a wall.

(Good news is that, probably because of all the steroids I've been on, for several weeks I haven't tipped over sideways in bed while reading, playing games, or watching TV.)

And in the midst of that near-meltdown a few days ago, I suddenly had the answer (mixed with a healthy side order of panic) to those intermittent prayers. Time for the next part of my life to begin. My official retirement date is October 1, and I am now peaceful and calm about that. Phrases from my patriarchal blessing have been wafting over my mind recently. We will be OK financially.

My last day in the office will be Friday, September 9, and at first I was excited to have a retirement event with friends and family invited. But after a thoughtful exchange with Middlest, I realized that I didn't want to be the vector of a super-spreader experience. Covid is rampant in this county. (Witness my own personal gotcha.) So we will have a small, private family party after the fact. The in-house celebration will be limited to whomever happens to be in the office that day.

After the dust settles, there will be a family executive meeting in which we lay the groundwork for providing that my money does not run out before my days do. But that's a whole 'nuther blog post.

Good Sabbath, all y'all.