Things are Happening Every Day . . .

In December 2019, I was sitting in my sunroom when a deep sense of peace and knowing came to me along with a message:  Retire.  Retire May 1st.

I have always wanted to retire early, and I've planned for it as best I could.  I wanted to do it last year, but I hesitated.  But this calm understanding that May 1st was the day was extremely clear to me, so I began to plan in earnest for a May 1st departure from from a job I had held for nearly 16 years.  That I actually retired on March 3rd had more to do with circumstances than anything else.

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I haven't been all that happy at my work for the past couple of years.  It was a wonderful place for 14 of my 16 years there, but changes in the past few years, particularly in the culture of the organization made it not such a great place to be any longer.   May 1st seemed to be a good date, but an incident occurred at work on February 13th that caused me to rethink my plan.  I'll not share the details here in a public forum, but it was enough to make me rethink, check a few things, juggle some things around, and move my plan up by a couple of months.  Once everything was in place I gave notice the next day.  That was the 18th.  Yesterday was my last day.

I took the train in to the city as usual yesterday morning, and I realized that we don't always know in life when something will be the "last" time . . .   And so, on my way in to work one last time, I took one last "The View from the Platform" photo.  I've posted these photos regularly on Instagram for years.  Come to find out that a lot of people really like them and while they were happy for me leaving my job, more than one person was like, "Wait!  What about The View from the Platform???"  :-)

The view to the pond from the platform is now nearly completely obscured by trees and shrubbery except at this time of year.  I told everyone that I would be finding new things to photograph  :-)  

Track 2 is where my train arrived yesterday.  Track 2 is everyone's least favorite track at Millennium Station.

It's ugly.  And dirty.  I won't miss it.  :-D   

This is the view (looking west on Randolph Street) that I used to see coming up from the station every day.  Yesterday it was cloudy.

I passed the theatre formerly known as the Oriental and was struck that I was walking to work "one more time."  The building next to the theatre was the Old Heidelberg restaurant many years ago.  More recently, it was the Argo Tea Cafe, but Argo shut its doors last month, and the wonderful clock that used to play show tunes at 9, 3, and 6 stopped one day at 10:26 . . . It often played Alice Blue Gown, which I particularly liked.

I made my way across the Loop and got to my building, and took the elevator up one last time to the 25th floor.

And then, when I left - early at 12:30 - I took this one in front of my former office building.

I love everything about this photo.  Everyone who has seen it says how very happy I look.  I was.  I am.  I left my reflection in the glass behind me, and headed to the train.

Today I woke up and realized I didn't have to go to work.  

It's a pretty amazing thing.  :-)  

I went to the health club and participated in an aerobics class, and then walked on the track for awhile - those together gave me more than 10,000 steps!  Wow!!  I then stopped at the labyrinth that is near my home.  I wanted to do something spiritual today to mark this change.  I got to have a great conversation with a friend I haven't been able to catch up with for some time, I drank tea after 3 o'clock (a treat because I don't have to get up at 5), and while writing this post I watched Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella - the movie, with Lesley Anne Warren.  It was made for TV back in 1965. I loved it so much when I was a kid that I made a pointed hat with a scarf (like many of the townswomen wore) that I wore around for quite some time, and I really wanted to figure out how to make the standards with the strings of upside down hearts on them that appear at the beginning of the closing scene.  :-D  (It's less than an hour and a half long.  Better if you can stream it without commercials, but the YoutTube is better than not at all  :-))

One of my best friends has been sending me really great YouTubes for the past two weeks to cheer me on as I worked out my notice.  We both love this movie, and she said that my choice to leap into the unknown world of early retirement was me actually living the Impossible song from this show. 

But the world is full of zanies and fools, who don't believe in sensible rules,

And won't believe what sensible people say,

And because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes - 

Impossible!  Things are happening every day  . . . 

Am I a zany?  A fool?  I think I'm probably better described as a daft and dewy-eyed dope - in the best possible way - because it's true:  Things are happening every day  :-) 

Onward . . . 

:-)