The Retirement Newsletter: 18 months left until I retire
Issue Number: -78 — why are 18 months significant?
Welcome
Welcome to issue number -78 — 18 months out from my retirement.
So, how is it going? And why are 18 months significant?
The Future
I have a plan.
I do quarterly reviews, and in my last review, three issues ago, I said that my concerns were:
Money — this is a worry. Soaring inflation and poor performance of my investments might delay my retirement.
Job — I will ride out the time until I retire. I may regret this decision if I have to postpone my retirement.
Health — time for a diet! Which is what I said last quarter.
Life — there has been some progress, but I need to do more.
In the last three weeks, inflation has worsened, and COVID-19 has knocked my health (Issue -79: It got me! Catching COVID-19), but that is not what 18 months are about. The 18 months is a time for reflection — a time to think about retirement.
The thing about 18 months
I have a weird thing about 18 months.
The early part of my career was divided into 3-year chunks.
Three years to get my first degree, and then three years to get my PhD.
Next came the three-year funding cycles for research — three years of funding from one source, three years for another.
Hence, in my career, I have had these three-year chunks for study or research — year one, elation: year two, hard work and some worry. Year three, panic and worry about where and when the subsequent funding will appear.
In the first ten years of my career, I relocated to a new city every two to three years as I chased funding.
When you live in a three-year cycle, 18 months becomes significant. It is halfway. And at 18 months, I always seemed to switch from a feeling of security to one concerned about what would happen next.
I will never forget one of these 18-month switches during my three-year PhD.
I was walking down the road one lunchtime to the bank to cash a cheque from my sponsor, and I realised it was the 31st of March. I was halfway through my PhD and didn’t get a decent result. I had nothing for my thesis. I wasn’t going to get my PhD.
During the first 18 months, I had been working hard, but things weren’t coming together. The experiments were not reproducible, and the data were not ‘tight’. It was inconsistent.
That 18 months point is still very fresh in my mind over 30 years later. I could take to the spot on the street where I realised I was at 18 months.
So, for me, 18 months is something significant, and I have always been surprised about how fast I get to 18 months and how quickly the next 18 months slip by.
Reflecting on 18 months
So, 18 months to go.
I have already started enjoying ‘penultimates’ at work — ‘this will be the last, but one time I do X’ and ‘next year will be the last time I do Y’. But it does seem a long way off to the final day.
Friends assure me the time will fly by, and I know they are right. It will.
Back in Issue -104: Two years to go! I wrote about my concerns about what I will be when I retire. It doesn’t seem like it was six months since I wrote the piece.
At the two-year mark, I still associated who I am with my job. My work defined me. I had been a lecturer (doing science and teaching) for over twenty years. I had been a scientist for 30 years. That was who I was.
I spoke to some retired friends, which didn’t help. Some loved describing themselves as retired; it was a bragging right; they had retired early. My other friends were not keen on the retired label; they felt it marked them as old and past it.
I did get one great piece of advice in response to Issue -104 that said:
“I think you are over thinking this. You will tell everyone you are a retired scientist, now reinventing your life in an exciting new way! Then boast of the actions you are taking toward reinvention! All with exclamation points!! Because it's exciting! I am a soon-to-be 70-year-old who is a cheerleader for this age group. You asked for stories/advice, this article might help: Reinventing Yourself: A How-To” — Lorie Kleiner Eckert
Lorie has an excellent point — time for a change and a reinvention.
I have come to terms with the idea of retirement. I embrace it. And I will reinvent myself.
Time for a change!
Health — COVID-19
I have had a few people contact me to ask how I am doing after my COVID-19 infection. Well, the good news is that I don’t seem to be experiencing any of the symptoms of long-COVID (list taken from NHS in the UK):
a high temperature, cough, headaches, sore throat, changes to sense of smell or taste
chest pain or tightness
depression and anxiety
difficulty sleeping (insomnia)
dizziness
extreme tiredness (fatigue)
feeling sick, diarrhoea, stomach aches, loss of appetite
heart palpitations
joint pain
pins and needles
problems with memory and concentration ("brain fog")
rashes
shortness of breath
tinnitus, earaches
Other than the fatigue. I get what I can only describe as waves of exhaustion where I have to stop what I am doing and take a break for 10–15 minutes. Luckily, these are becoming less frequent.
I have noticed that a leg I broke four years ago has become very painful. I mentioned this to a friend, and they said the same thing happened to them post-COVID-19. An ankle they broke a few years ago became painful again. All very odd. It may have something to do with COVID-19 causing general increases in the level of inflammation?
In the list above, I experienced most of them during my infection with COVID-19, apart from a high temperature. All my symptoms were mild, but I experienced most of those listed.
Hopefully, I have been lucky and will not experience the problems of long-COVID.
Useful links
Useful COVD-19 links:
UK NHS COVID-19 website — lots of links to information on COVID-19
CDC COVID-19 website — lots of links to information on COVID-19
Next week
Next week is Issue -77, and I will be looking at keeping myself entertained during my retirement.
Thanks
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Until next time,
Nick
PS, If you have something you would like to contribute to the newsletter — a story, advice, anything — please get in touch.