This is a little off topic, but I didn't want it to be on the public forum.
I just got home from signing all the paperwork and turning in my employee badge. I retired today at the ripe old age of 57.
My plan is to move back to Illinois from a much more citizen-friendly state. The impetus to return to my home town (Rockford) is to be closer to my dad. He's 82 now and been on his own for a little more than three years since my mom passed. He's mostly okay, but he's never really adjusted well to having to keep up with all the day-to-day stuff he always counted on mom to do. My sisters who live in the general area (within 20-25 miles of him) fret and worry about him and cognitive decline and such. I talk to him weekly and on my visits up there I don't see a big change, but it just got to the point where I won't sleep well at night until I get close enough to see for myself on a regular basis, and offload some of the worry from my sisters (one of whom has some significant health issues of her own to mind, and the other can barely keep her own life from jumping the track). And, I just want to hang out with the guy. I bolted for the East Coast 34+ years ago right after I graduated from Illinois, and have probably averaged less than two weeks/year visiting folks back home. I've got a window of opportunity I don't want to pass by.
This isn't an impulsive reaction to things with my dad. I've been single-mindedly obsessed with retiring early for the last 9 years since a near job loss scare in the wake of the financial crisis served as a wake up call to the vulnerability inherent to my financial behavior to that point. Along the way I picked up a small 3-season cabin 18 miles northeast of Ely, MN, which is my "happy place", which will figure prominently in the mix to provide "me" time and hopefully a lot of walleye dinners. I'm about as confident as one can be without being naive I can pull this off (as long as I don't stay in Illinois too long, ha). Most likely a day will come where I won't be looking after him any longer at which point I'll have another decision to make about where I live. Likely at that point I'll be returning to the southeast to be closer to my daughters and the grandkiddies, but there's a chance I'll upgrade to a proper year-round home up in the northwoods.
The closest to on-topic as it gets is that after all these years I'm close enough to Champaign that catching a game every now and again can be a reasonable day trip. I haven't been to one since I was a student, so when the first couple start drawing near you'll probably see some ignorant-sounding noob questions from me about how to efficiently figure out where to park and such.
It feels pretty strange to suddenly be unemployed even though it's for a good reason. My goal is to be just like Cratch in a couple years!
I just got home from signing all the paperwork and turning in my employee badge. I retired today at the ripe old age of 57.
My plan is to move back to Illinois from a much more citizen-friendly state. The impetus to return to my home town (Rockford) is to be closer to my dad. He's 82 now and been on his own for a little more than three years since my mom passed. He's mostly okay, but he's never really adjusted well to having to keep up with all the day-to-day stuff he always counted on mom to do. My sisters who live in the general area (within 20-25 miles of him) fret and worry about him and cognitive decline and such. I talk to him weekly and on my visits up there I don't see a big change, but it just got to the point where I won't sleep well at night until I get close enough to see for myself on a regular basis, and offload some of the worry from my sisters (one of whom has some significant health issues of her own to mind, and the other can barely keep her own life from jumping the track). And, I just want to hang out with the guy. I bolted for the East Coast 34+ years ago right after I graduated from Illinois, and have probably averaged less than two weeks/year visiting folks back home. I've got a window of opportunity I don't want to pass by.
This isn't an impulsive reaction to things with my dad. I've been single-mindedly obsessed with retiring early for the last 9 years since a near job loss scare in the wake of the financial crisis served as a wake up call to the vulnerability inherent to my financial behavior to that point. Along the way I picked up a small 3-season cabin 18 miles northeast of Ely, MN, which is my "happy place", which will figure prominently in the mix to provide "me" time and hopefully a lot of walleye dinners. I'm about as confident as one can be without being naive I can pull this off (as long as I don't stay in Illinois too long, ha). Most likely a day will come where I won't be looking after him any longer at which point I'll have another decision to make about where I live. Likely at that point I'll be returning to the southeast to be closer to my daughters and the grandkiddies, but there's a chance I'll upgrade to a proper year-round home up in the northwoods.
The closest to on-topic as it gets is that after all these years I'm close enough to Champaign that catching a game every now and again can be a reasonable day trip. I haven't been to one since I was a student, so when the first couple start drawing near you'll probably see some ignorant-sounding noob questions from me about how to efficiently figure out where to park and such.
It feels pretty strange to suddenly be unemployed even though it's for a good reason. My goal is to be just like Cratch in a couple years!
