2 Months and 8 days to go and I am freaking out. As excited as I am about retirement, as it approaches I am getting stressed. It is such a permanent decision, and any mistakes multiply over time, that it is hard not to be stressed.
I worry about money, about where I will live, HOW I will live, what I will do. I am worried about everything.
I had even decided to pull my papers and not retire this year. That lasted about 5 seconds. I AM going. There is some possibility of changing the date a few weeks later. This was always on the table, as I had chosen the current date of May 10 for two reasons. 1) it was the earliest I could possibly walk out the door if I used ALL my vacation time instead of getting a payout at the end. and 2) I originally planned on heading out of the country early June and wanted about a month to settle things here.
I have been thinking that I might want to change my plans a bit, partly because I have not actually done any planning yet, and partly because my initial plans were a bit too costly. I was going to get rid of almost everything I own, buy a new to me bike and fly it to Germany, then ride for 3 months or 3 years, staying at hotels and Airbnb mostly.
I am now thinking that I should ease into retirement a little slower. Move into a smaller apartment, plan on going to Europe for only a few months, then see what happens. This is not really so much a change in plans as a change in attitude.
But, as anyone that has talked to me in the last month knows, my plans are changing minute by minute depending on my current stress level.