The beginning

Today's the big day. T-minus zero. I've been trying to characterize the feeling of it in my mind. Sometimes it feels like I'm on death row: Everyone keeps saying goodbye like they're never going to see me again. Right....like I'm just going to fade away. I'll be back around and bothering them relentlessly....peppering their email with the latest web-fodder of the day. I think the retirement party last Saturday was the big peak for me. Since then I've been low-keying it with thoughts that I'm not at an end, but at a beginning.

The retirement party was a meaningful event. I was humbled by presentation of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine and the ESS plaque was beautiful. The language (of both) really capture my career ethos. I loved the fact that Steve, Jay, Mitch and I could round out the years as a group but felt bad about any implication that our unity at the party reflected that I don't enjoy a now-firm bond with my current peer group, the BAU. They've meant a lot to me in the past year in accepting me as a senior peer rather than a former supervisor/manager. That was a feeling I had missed for years and years.

I think everyone else are more excited about the 'finality' of today than I am. For the last month or so, I've been scanning (literally, as in electronically) my years of paper files into .pdfs, for both my own records and to make available to anyone, particularly the Aquatic Toxicology Unit, a little bit of the history that led to the present. That process was as much a catharsis of the years as anything else has been.

Nancy asked me last night what I wanted for my 'retirement dinner' tonight and nothing out of the ordinary really registered with me. I think we'll just do a couple of trays of grocery store sushi by the TV as a typical Friday night and maybe savor the moment a little more than usual. She out-did that and got a good dinner from a sushi restaurant.

I'm still in a bit of a fog...a feeling that I'm sure will quickly change as I get a routine set. I think pacing will have to be a focus so that I'm not constantly looking for something to be occupied with. That will come with time.