Retirement anxiety

I think it's very normal. We live our work lives for so long that I think it is hard to get used to the idea of really being done. I'm a teacher and all of my colleagues who have retired had to adjust to the idea, but none of them looked back once they did it.

I retired from my job of 27 years in August of 2014 so it's been 18 months for me and no, I was ready. I had started training my colleague who was taking over my duties six months before I actually left (they couldn't replace me because of budget) and by the time August rolled around, she was completely capable.

I will say the last month was agonizing though....and I even took a week of vacation time I had during that last month. I just wanted to be DONE.

Haven't regretted my decision one minute. I do miss seeing a few of my co-workers on a daily basis but we make a point of getting together 5-6 times a year for various fun parties or outings but I always feel bad for them because none of them are happy there and the very issues that sent up the red flags for me to get out while the getting was good have happened....I feel like I dodged a bullet.

Good luck on your retirement! You're going to love it.

I retired about six year ago and was glad!!

But up until the day, I kept saying things like " I need to get such and such done"  by Friday, etc.

My manager/coworkers kept saying, who cares, somebody else will do it, you're retiring.

But they told me NOT to tell my account I was retiring.   So I didn't.  And apparently no one else did either.

Because my account started complaining that I wasn't returning phone calls--after I retired!!

Ah--the political stuff that goes on with giant companies. 

Yay for you and the retirement! I retired after 28 years of teaching. I graded papers most nights, continued my education through the summers, and worked on curriculum over the summer. I didn't tell anyone that I was retiring (and everyone thought I would stay longer) so I never heard people say the things that can cause anxiety until April. I knew when we were expected to teach a new writing program from an iPad that I was out. I was a dang good teacher and resented a canned program. So for me, it seemed logical. I gave away a lot of my teaching stuff, but still made about 2K from a garage sale. Tomorrow I am donating the last of my books to a business that gets families back on track. I told myself that I had until Christmas to just do my thing. I think that deadline of finding another job or whatever I was going to do helped me just relax. There were so many things I didn't do because I was always teaching. I knew that the next seven months would be mine… all mine. The only thing I really did was scrapbook and volunteer once a week at my school. I even took my kid to Universal for a vacation in January. When people would ask me what I was going to do (too young to really retire-50) I said I didn't know and was happy to let the future work itself out. I am so glad I did that. Really. Give yourself the gift of not knowing. It almost made me giddy.

A job did come my way and it is really the perfect part time job. It is for just a year, but it can lead to lots of other jobs at my current workplace. My boss really respects my knowledge in education and my love of teaching. We had a meeting last week and he asked me if I would consider traveling out of the US to evaluate other programs. Yes, please! I guess my point is that you know you want to retire. Retiring doesn't mean that you can't be busy and useful. It just means that you get to decide every single day what you choose to do. You have put in the time and you deserve to make these decisions. Teaching is really draining even when you love it. Get ready to wake up and not feel like you are already behind. I would think that just knowing all of the stress you are walking away from should reduce your anxiety. Good luck. I can't recommend retirement enough!

I retired after teaching 28 years, no anxiety, just looked forward to living the rest of my life without an alarm clock waking me up. After re-reading what you wrote it almost sounds like you are ready to retire but you are afraid that something will prevent that from happening. You are in control, you just have to think of the rest of you life as one long well deserved summer vacation. Time to read, relax and just enjoy, all the things you never had time to do during the school year. Good luck.

The only bad part about it is not having the excitement of a snow day.

I think that is normal.

My mom is getting ready to retire in the middle of April. She swings back and forth between euphoria at never having to return to her employer to thoughts about what to do next with her life. She is only going to be 55 and while she will receive her pension, she will need to work for insurance or self pay on the retiree system, which is very expensive. The uncertainty of retiring is scary, but if she doesn't do it now she runs the risk of losing the chance to retire early with the next union contract.

Melissa

That is a big change.  I know the people that were hired a few years after me had to work longer.  Now it seems new teachers will have to be teaching forever before they qualify.  I worked for 28 and bought four years of my Social Security (from high school and college jobs) to equal 32 years.  

I retired after 35 years of teaching. My last year was a great year with 160 of the best kids ever! But no, I did not feel anxiety only excitement. I was already doing a lot of things that I would do after retirement and I have read that that is a good thing to do. Start doing some of the things you do after retirement now, it's supposed to reduce anxiety about retirement. And like another poster mentioned in Ohio many of us would actually lose money if we continue to teach