That day.

Years from now, we’ll talk about this day as the day I officially retired. For right now? There’s no grand announcement. Instead, after a bumpy night’s sleep, I woke up with a clarity I’ve only experienced a few times in my life: it’s time to retire.

Now, I still have a little sporadic work that will pop up from time to time. I have some travel this summer and fall with strategic planning, a workforce presentation and a possible on-site visit. I also have a couple of small projects that may still come through. But I always knew I had an expiration date on my professional career and I never planned to be that professional athlete still on the field long past my prime. Do I still have a little life left in me? Yep. But it’s not enough to keep a career going and that is completely okay with me.

Instead, I now truly pivot to my two passion projects: writing my book and taking care of my home. In the past six weeks as I’ve been home, I have to say that I’ve enjoyed taking care of us more than I ever realized I would (and I always had a strong suspicion I’d enjoy it). It is genuinely fulfilling to me and my days are not boring! In fact, even my husband noticed how busy I am during the day. Each day it’s nice, I take the kitties out for about an hour-and-a-half. That’s time they wouldn’t normally get. I also do small projects for my hubby and then make sure our home and life runs smoothly. The proof that it’s working? We had a low-key, relaxing weekend, the likes of which we have rarely experienced.

For awhile now, I’ve been struggling with this decision. Like all potential retirees, I worry that I didn’t save enough and in my late 50s, I worry that I’ll be a burden on my husband, who now carries the financial load. I also thought of nice trips to Antigua or France, a newly built garage and other accoutrement we could fill our lives with if I worked. But mostly, it was about pulling my fair share of the work burden and financial weight around here. For all that I aspire to be a homemaker, this family is a partnership and everyone tries to give 51%. (Well, except for the cats. On a good day, they collectively give 42%.) I would ask myself if I wasn’t working, how could I take resources from our family?

But this morning, something shifted and it’s been percolating for a while. We sat out on the deck last night and discussed the week ahead. My husband has a project he wants me to assist with and there’s actually two steps I could do this week which would put him ahead of the game for when he gets back to it. I’ve also got two days’ worth of laundry loads to run through on the clothesline (about 6-8 loads in total), daily kitty outdoor time and a wedding to shoot this weekend that I need to prepare for. My conclusion? I likely didn’t have time to work on the book again this week, particularly because I also have billable work to do.

Overnight, the thought percolated that I truly am busy outside of work and that it genuinely hasn’t slowed down over the last six weeks. In fact, looking out on the horizon, I don’t see it slowing down at all. I’m still doing some special projects with my sister, we still have additional garden rows we could plant with beets and carrots if we wanted, we have friends coming to stay a week with us in August and the kitties show no sign of learning boundaries. But mostly? I realized that for as much as we used to claim that life would slow down “after the wedding,” it hasn’t. Instead, it only slowed down – for both of us – after I stopped working.

It’s time. In the end, I’m not sure if I’ll look back on this whole decision-making process and decide if it was a success or failure. I hope I don’t regret not grinding it out and hustling to find more and more work. But I also know that I will regret it if I don’t finish my book and that my soul is enjoying this time in a way that I truly needed.

All of my life, I feel like I have pushed myself towards things I was ready emotionally for but perhaps not as physically prepared as I should have been. A marathon, career changes, bigger roles, more responsibilities, higher and higher risks and rewards. It occurs to me that this is the last of those changes. Choosing to essentially retire is something I am genuinely emotionally ready for. Whether the physical circumstances are right or not have yet to be determined. But for me and this moment? My soul is happy and that’s going to have to be enough.