It’s a date!!

 So right about now you’re thinking,

“OK – so far so good.  I know who these people are, I know what they’re doing, but I’m still not sure where they’re going. And why now?”

You know when you’re having a really bad day at work, and you look at your phone for the 14 hundredth time, and then the line of emails on your computer screen, and you just ask yourself, “when will this end?”  Literally, there are so many other things I’d rather be doing, than what I’m doing at work, right now, and one of the options I’m seriously considering is a root canal without anesthesia.  Well, I was having one of those days back in 2014.  But this day was different, yes it was, because on this date, I got a blank white sheet of paper, and with outline markers of multiple colors, scrawled in large block letters, I’M DONE – 6/22/2022.

There were more significant life events prompting Judy and my desire to retire early.   There are tragedies in life, and no one is immune.  Early in 2012 and then again in 2014 we endured the deaths of people so, so close to us.  The loss of my extremely young mother in 2012, at 66, and the heart wrenching loss of Judy’s twin sister, Julie, in 2014 at 48 really shook us to our core.  These were people that never had “a chance to retire”.   Needless to say, it was not hard to sell Judy on the idea of retiring before we were 60.  The satisfaction of working and then retiring would NOT be snatched from us!

Now, an observant reader will note that this is 2023, not 2022.  What happened?  Ahh that’s a rather amusing story about how bad math caused a delay of retirement by 1 year.  And it goes something like this:

I was born in late 1963, and when I quickly calculated the numbers to scrawl this date, I figured that by 2022, I would be 59 ½ years old and that was my goal age.  So for the next several years 6/22/2022 was my goal date to retire.  And then one day in 2017, the branch manager, Randy, came into my office, says good morning, whilst glancing at my small white poster taped to the wall opposite my desk and inquires as to the significance of the statement, “I’M DONE – 6/22/2022.”   I quite politely tell him that is my retirement date,

“I look at it (the date) and imagine the possibilities when I’m having a bad day.”

Seemed perfectly reasonable to me. So then Randy asks one more question, “How old am I going to be?” 

I reply, “59 ½, I was born in 1963, so I’ll be 60 in 2023 so I’ll be 59 ½” in 2022.”

Randy pauses, as he is doing the math in his head.  Then he brings the hammer down on my retirement dream by saying,        

 “Hey buddy, I think you did your math wrong. You’re only going to be 58 ½ in 2022, you’ll be 59 ½ in 2023!” and starts to chuckle.

Sad truth was that Randy was 100 % correct.  Well, that date was still a long, long way away, and there were so many things that were going to have to happen first.  All I could really do at this point was jump out my seat, grab a black marker, go over to my 8 ½” x 11” poster sign and revise said date.  To 2023.  I’M DONE – 6/22/2022 3.  And that’s the way in stayed. 

I still work with Randy, he is one of those people I will miss when I leave the working world.  Last year, on June 22, 2022, on my way out the door from the office, I waved goodbye to Randy, then turned around and flipped him the middle finger, with a big smile on my face.  Randy looked up from behind the screen of his computer shoulders shrugged, with a confused look, inquiring what he had done to raise my wrath. I announce back,

 “If it wasn’t for you and you’re correcting my math, today would be my last day, as I would be retiring.  Now I have one more year, so thanks a lot!”, and I started to laugh.  As I turn, I flip him a thumbs up, announcing “it’s all good, it’s only another year!” as the storefront door closes behind me.

I had no idea in 2014 how important it was for me to write a date down and look at it and plan all the things that would be needed to meet that date.  Looking back, probably one of the most significant promises I made to myself and to Judy was that we would do everything necessary to meet that date, and even if we missed by a year or so, there was a date set.