I'd turned in my Chamberlin set of keys--much to the chagrin of my supervisor, who hadn't realized I had one of the rare and coveted utility closet keys. Some keys were for rooms that don't exist anymore. The 4th floor hall was quiet--about a third of the doors were to offices for emeritus professors. I suppose the rest were either in lab or class or working from home.
I triple checked the laptop for any documents that people might want to refer to later, and copied them to the NFS home area. The cabinet has nothing but old software manuals and tapes that somebody else can wheel to the dump. The books are in the common book shelf. The State Archive documents and old purchase reqs stay.
I just uninstalled the Slack app from my cell phone.
Maybe the COVID work-from-home era makes the change seem less dramatic, but it doesn't feel any different. I'm working up a schedule with my wife to synchronize times for writing, chores, and what have you.
We'll see how different it feels next week.
3 comments:
Happy retirement!
I understand this, I think. In the time up to my partial retirement in 2017, after which I would only work per diem, I found myself thinking of Frodo's line before leaving the Shire "Will I ever look down on that valley again, I wonder?" There was some wrench even then, walking out into the parking lot. The final break was abrupt over three years later. When I came in that morning I did not know I would be resigning by 1PM. But there was that same unreality in those few last hours, focusing on odd details of trying to put things to rest and even to sleep in proper fashion, as you do here.
The hospital reopened for visitors, and I did visit, quite spontaneously just a few weeks ago. Only about 90 minutes. I saw faces and was glad, but mostly, it felt like I was looking on a life that had been lived by someone else, some brother or friend I knew well but was not I. Sixteen months later, a different world. Sehnsucht is not quite the right word for this staring-into-the-embers nostalgia, but it's something like that. More enjoyable than sad, really.
I have loved full retirement. I do have lingering questions of finding more useful things to do, but the joy of walking and listening to podcasts about many things is very great. I am smarter than ever, if only anyone were interested!
I posted "There's a last time for everything" on our slack channel.
And then the "Hallelujah Chorus."
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