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retirement
Dear Mary
Dear Centenarian Mary,
Congratulations! We made it to the big ten-oh. I hope 2065 is treating us well and that we haven’t run out of money. Seriously, we’ve lived 8 years longer than our financial planner modeled. (I hope I didn’t fuck us by retiring at 58.)
In case you’ve forgotten, 2024 was quite a year. If the United States is now a dictatorship under Baron Trump, it’s not due to lack of effort on our part. We worked hard to try to stop his wretched orange father from overturning democracy.
Hopefully things took a turn for the better in 2025—the year we turned 60. Hopefully. Fingers crossed that we get to go out on a high note.
Love,
Middle-aged Mary
Related post:
Are you retired?
Having recently been through a bunch of toxic workplace bullshit that resulted in me resigning my position a couple years earlier than originally planned, I’m not loving the question, “So, are you retired now?”
I mean, yeah, I guess I am. I can afford to stop working for money now. But it does feel unusual and rather lazy, when nearly every other able-bodied person my age is still working full-time.
I know, I know. This is a First World problem that I’m lucky to have.
If I answer unenthusiastically, “yeah, I guess so,” sometimes I get “oh, I only ask because you look too young to be retired,” which is 100% the correct way to recover from asking me the question in the first place. Playing to someone’s vanity, when put your foot in your mouth, can work quite well.
The one question that is truly non-recoverable from, if you ask the wrong woman, is: “when are you due?” Just don’t. Ever.
N/A
I’m no longer working a paid job. I had a career that I loved for decades, but that ended in late November.
Related post: Work update 4
It’s great to be done with Danielle
A year ago, I would not have anticipated being unemployed (or very possibly, I’ll just say it: retired) by December 2023, although I had been thinking about it.
I had worked in a job I really loved for nearly 20 years, but it was definitely getting repetitive. ALL my requests had been honored (full-time status; remote status, etc.) except ONE. And the one was that I really didn’t want to report to my toxic supervisor Suzanne Danielle (her real name) any longer. But I thought I’d put up with Danielle until I turned 60 (at least). The salary was quite good and the benefits were great.
Well, a “last straw” event led to my resigning and leaving just after Thanksgiving. As of today, I think I made the correct decision. I’m so happy to never have to deal with Danielle again – ever. We’ll see how I feel about being unemployed/retired once the excitement of the holidays has passed.
In the meantime, my son came home from college yeserday (yay) and I made an attempt at one of NYT Cooking’s top 50 recipes of the year. They call it “Marry Me Chicken.” Supposedly, if you’re single and you make this for someone, they’ll put a ring on it fast. Here‘s the recipe. Here’s how mine came out:
Contemplating early retirement
What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?
I’ve enjoyed my job for many years. I’ve gone from contractor, to part-time employee, to full-time employee with the same organization over the past 18 years.
The organization went through a rocky merger with a larger one in 2017 and it’s just never been as fun as it was in the old days. The money and benefits are better, but I don’t like the person I ended up having to report to. And there are other problems.
So, the biggest risk I’d like to take, but haven’t been able to (yet), would be to give my notice. The risk is less about the income, and more about the void. What am I going to do with all that time and mental energy? What do healthy retired people in their 60s actually do all day?
If you could retire at 60, would you?
50 Happens 