I was having diner with two retired friends, one recently retired and one retired for a few years now. They had both made radical changes to their lives in retirement, having moved out of the city and both with small homesteads. Living their best lives, as the saying goes. At one point, Ed (names have been changed to protect the innocent, but you know who you are!!) stops eating and looks up at me. “You must really love your job,” he says to me.

As is it happened, I did love my work. I had a great job, working with dedicated people, and doing work I found very rewarding. But what did he mean? “I mean,” he continues, “It’s not like you still need to work.”

You could have pushed me over with a feather. What did he mean- still need to work? Of course I, the daughter of hard-working imigrant parents, needed to work. My parents worked all their lives. And both sets of grandparents lived through the depression and, on the German side of my family, WWII. Hard workers through and through.

But a seed had been planted. And here I am, not two years later, retired. I have not made quite the radical changes made by my dining friends, but here I sit, retired. And not regretting a single moment of the past year. How did I get here? Well, that story is yet to come. But here I am, covered in flour, very happy, and very thankful.