Month: September 2025

I’ve been working since I toiled in the tobacco fields of Connecticut when I was fourteen, sweating my ass off in the scorching summer sun under cheese cloth nets. My first “real” job occurred three years later when I obtained summer employment at the Hartford Hospital Business Office. Little did I know this would be the catapult for a career in healthcare revenue cycle management that started shortly after college and spanned forty-nine years, eight employers and three states. I’ve been with my current employer for over seventeen years.  

I began to seriously think about retirement a few years ago, but the thought of living without a paycheck can be intimidating, not knowing how long the money you accumulated for retirement will last, or how much monthly expenses might need to be cut. 

Then there is the issue of my MS. On the rare occasions where I thought about what retirement might be like before MS entered the picture, I envisioned a life where I could do anything I pleased and travel where I wanted to. While that isn’t off the table, the fact is my mobility is extremely compromised, and I lead a sedentary life. I have always enjoyed getting on a plane and flying off to visit new places and friends, but MS has made travelling and sightseeing a chore. 

These types of issues made it harder to commit to a date. I worked on the numbers with a financial advisor last year to obtain a level of comfort, but you don’t really know what it will be like until you take the plunge and see what develops. 

I pledged to take plunge and retire last December, but it decided to defer that decision for one year. I felt more committed to pulling the plug this time around but wondered if I would come up with another excuse to wimp out again once it came crunch time to file the paperwork. Deep down, I wanted the decision to be a no-brainer but did not know what it would take for that to occur. 

I kept a monthly countdown and became more excited and apprehensive as each month elapsed. Then out of the blue, my employer announced a voluntary early retirement program for employees who met certain age and longevity criteria. That caught my attention. 

I was hoping for an offer I couldn’t refuse but thought that might be too optimistic. But when the offer came, it was more generous than I expected, so much so that I read it several times and called the contact numbers on the offer to make sure I understood it correctly. I had, and this was the nudge I needed. 

So, the plug has been officially pulled. My last day is September 19^th. I’m both excited and a little nervous. I will enjoy not having to wake up to an alarm clock unless I want to. I will enjoy having a lot of free time on my hands and need to come up with fun and interesting things to fill most of that time. What I am most looking forward to is leaving the daily work grind, staying up as late as I choose and sleeping in a little more in the mornings. 

Now that I’ve committed, the significance of what this step means has settled in. 

I’ve always thought of life as a series of periods, with each period preparing us for the next. Childhood leads to adolescence then adulthood. As an adult we typically begin our careers in earnest, get married, have kids, secure housing, and slave away while trying to save enough to be able to afford to retire.      

I don’t want to minimize the joy and freedom being retired brings.  But if we are talking about life stages, what is the next big thing after retirement? Death. That sounds grim, but I don’t mean it that way.

Let’s face it. Retirement is the beginning of the last leg of our life’s journey. I prefer to think of it as revisiting the childhood years, minus the immaturity. It is a time to recapture as much of the fun we had as kids and squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of whatever years that remain. The hope is we won’t be short-changed regarding how many years we get, that we remain mentally sharp, and we don’t spend significant time in a hospital or any time in a nursing home. 

My parents were lucky. Their biggest fears were that they would become sick and a burden to their kids, but that never happened.  They lived to 96 and 92 and were both physically fit and mentally sharp for their age. Their ends came quickly with no prolonged illness or drama.  Dad died within three days of the event that felled him and Mom never recovered from her event and was gone hours later. I should be so lucky. 

When I first learned I had MS and contemplated an unknown future, I didn’t dwell or obsess about a life that suddenly had storm clouds on the horizon. Whatever the future held would arrive in due time so why worry until it is necessary? It was important to learn what I could do in terms of treatments and meds that could slow my progression, but I didn’t let the disease consume my thoughts or dictate how I lived. I’m following that same mindset regarding the retirement years: embrace the present, squeeze as much enjoyment from it as possible, and worry about the other shit when I must.Damm the torpedoes, full steam ahead, and seize the day!