I have been posting updates on our countdown to retirement in a forum I am active on – and then the thought occurred to me – why don’t I write about that on my own blog? This is the fourth post in the series on how we are marching towards the finish/start line.
March 7th – 29 days to go. Or not, I am not sure how to count down anymore 🙂  Either it’s 29 days, according to the original plan, or it’s 87 days with five weeks of paid/unpaid vacation in between (at the most, 87 days can be fewer based on what my boss decides to do – but more on that below)…
Mental state:
- As I was preparing to enable the scenario of getting an unpaid leave before actually calling it quits, I learned that I needed to ask for the unpaid leave at least 30 days before its expected start date. So yesterday I had the conversation with my boss. Despite a lot of preparation, I was so nervous that I think I had heart palpitations… Something is definitely not right with my mental state if I get in such a condition over something that shouldn’t matter much… Yes, I want the unpaid leave to be approved to get a little more money vested, but it’s not the end of the world if that doesn’t happen. So what’s wrong with me??
- Anyways, the section of my 1:1 with the boss regarding my leave lasted the whole two minutes… I stated that I need the leave to take care of my mental and physical health, and that I am asking for four weeks of unpaid leave following me exhausting my paid time off, staring mid April. He wrote that down, asked me to send an email to him and our HR partner, so that they could discuss the next steps, and that was it.
- I don’t know how to feel about that, it’s as if there is some sense of incompletion. It reminds me of the episode from Big Bang Theory when Amy tries to teach Sheldon that it’s ok to not complete some things, and interrupted a few things that he was working on (such as building a sequence of domino tiles and not letting them fall, etc.). At the end of this episode Sheldon locked himself in his apartment and completed all of those interrupted things to satisfy his need to complete everythingÂ
I feel something similar, that sense of not completeness…. - Regardless, I started the process. Whichever way it goes, I am going to be retired soon. The boss can approve the entire four requested weeks (which will result in the retirement date being 87 days from now) or maybe just two/three weeks (which will make my last day sooner) or not approve at all, in which case 29 days it is
Preparation for retirement:
- I feel like I already planned the rest of the year as much as I could have
- That’s not true! Just a few days ago I learned that Hyatt is changing award categories for many of its hotels (to make them higher category, and as a result, requiring more points to book them), with the change taking effect on March 28th. Thompson hotel in Madrid is one of such hotels, and yesterday I went ahead and booked a couple of more nights at the end of my trip to Spain (before flying back home) before the required number of points went up.
- Started looking into booking flights from Seattle to Connecticut in early August for me, my son and my niece (which I am bringing home after she stays with us for about a month). Will be booking flights (most likely with Southwest since I have Companion pass) pretty soon.
Stay tuned for further updates as we get closer to the D-Day! A surprise is coming!