I still can’t believe I’ve been retired a whole year. The last day of July, last year, was my last day in the office. And while I really enjoyed my job and usually felt I was making a difference, I haven’t missed it for a single second. I knew it was time to make a change and if I hadn’t been in a position to retire, it would have meant looking for something new.

So this blog post should be about all the things I’ve accomplished in these past twelve months. How I ramped up the writing, launched a book, have another well underway and am making huge strides in the writing world. Oh the plans I had. The progress I was going to make. The schedule I was going to set – and keep.

Sigh.

What is it they say – God laughs when we make plans? It’s a Yiddish proverb (the original is Mann Tracht, un Gogg Lachlan – or Man Plans, God laughs) and it rather well explains my last year. That’s not to say I wasn’t busy. Very busy. I just wasn’t busy doing what I planned. 

As a long-single mother of three great grownups, I’d long held the romantic notion that in my first three months of retirement I’d rent an AirBnB in three different European countries – a solo adventure to decompress and just write. But the universe had other ideas. A few months before retirement a marvellous ginger-headed man proposed, and we planned a wedding for – wait for it – that December. Suddenly three months solo didn’t hold as much appeal! Planning went into overdrive as I tried not to hyperventilate too often over planning and executing in just seven months. 

Of course, then there was small problem of two dwellings. We decided to sell my house, so the decluttering began. And just to make things fun, why not ink the deal while walking the Camino in Spain?! Imagine me, sitting on the edge of the bed late at night, exhausted from the 20-30 km we’d walked that day, waiting for the phone call about what the first-time buyers’ crazy uncle thought could be a “problem” with my very unproblematic house – and how much of a discount they wanted.

When it was finally done, I agreed to a quick close, which meant essentially flinging my belongings into a big steel box and had it delivered to my parent’s home on the lake, which I was purchasing. Oh, did I mention that? It makes the teeny tiny condo feel slightly less small when we can escape to the lake. We had renos to do in an outbuilding on the property that we are turning into a cottage for family and friends, so the box sat there through the winter and only got unloaded in late January after we returned from our honeymoon to beautifully refinished white pine floors.

The wedding was fantastic (except for a nasty ice storm that kept some of our guests away) and we raised almost $50,000 for a bursary – you can read more about that here (scroll down to Innovative Ministeries) – we’ve established to help people go on pilgrimage – the last thing we needed after downsizing was more stuff!

When we got back, we started spending a lot of time at the lake, as my father was in his last weeks of life. Since then, I’ve unfortunately had to learn way too much about the paperwork and administration of overseeing (a relatively simple) estate. We’re almost through it, at long last. My husband and I have just returned from a few weeks in the UK – we missed most of their heatwave, fortunately – and I also attended oodles of book events throughout the year, with plenty more to come in the fall. In many ways, it feels like retirement is finally beginning just now!

So if I had to give myself a performance review, what would it look like?

Planning: A
Outcomes: D
Effort: A
Resilience: A
Enjoying every minute of it? A
Prepared for more planned outcomes in year 2? A+

I’ll take that!