Four more days….  that’s all that’s left of my career.  I had other jobs before I started down this path, but I started as a temp in an insurance office in 1974,  and signed on full-time in 1975.  I briefly tried something else, but I’ve pretty much been a property & casualty business insurance geek for going on forty years.

I’ll kiss all that glamour and excitement good-bye next Thursday afternoon, and although I’ve enjoyed my career and the people I’ve worked with, I really don’t expect to miss it.

Still, I’ve been grumpy and tense these past few weeks. Part of this is that our calendar quarter-end is always hectic, but there’s something more.   A good friend stated the obvious simply for me:   any life change, even a happy one like a marriage, a new baby, or voluntary retirement, is stressful.

It’s not that I’ll feel lost without my job (I absolutely won’t), or that I won’t know what to do with myself next (I absolutely will).  However, I will now choose what tasks I undertake on any given day, as well as what things I won’t do on any given day.  There will be no excuses for anything I don’t accomplish – it’s all on me.

There’s an eternal truth that every door has two sides.  Every tomorrow has a yesterday.  Every beginning signifies an ending.

I suppose a little piece of me is mourning the impending loss of position, occupation, and purpose that come with my job.  I will no longer be a piece of that larger whole in my daily activities.   And I will no longer have my goals established for me.

Why do I believe that I won’t miss my job?  Because next Friday I’m going to visit my son and his family.  And then I’m off to see my mother and sister.  And then there will be Easter with our whole family.  And after that I have a three page list of things I’ve been wanting (or needing) to do.

I don’t expect to miss my job, because I plan to fill my days with family, and financial planning, and finding a smaller house, and kayaking, and archiving family photos.  I hope to find a place working with at least one local human services organization.  I have a stack of books I want to read.  And I’ll still spend time with some of my friends from work. I have a wonderful opportunity to set and accomplish my own daily goals from now on.

And the rest of my new life to blog about how I do it.

photo credit: © Serggod – Fotolia.com