I heard someone I know is about to retire. What’s it like to not have to go to a job you’ve been at for decades? No more waking up early despite late nights, no more endless, pointless meetings, no more forced encounters with people you don’t want to see in the elevator, and no more wearing suits you don’t like. 🌟
Sorry, but we don’t need this person in our company anymore
Is that what it feels like hearing it over the shoulder? 🤔
Before returning from San Francisco – though it’s quite different – it felt similar. Like I was politely informed that neither the school nor San Francisco needed me anymore. With a heavy heart, I packed, said my goodbyes, turned off the gas, and emptied the fridge. On the last day, I took the bus from home to the end of California Street, Lands End.
I arrived late in the afternoon, with hardly anyone around and the wind blowing fiercely. Sitting there with a cup of coffee, I stared at the ocean for an hour. And then I felt light-hearted and thought,
Let’s go! To Seoul...
With that, I dusted myself off, hopped on the bus back home while listening to Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘The End is the Beginning is the End’. 🎶
Life is a cycle of meetings and farewells, beginnings and endings, hopes and disappointments, all intertwined and continuously repeating. Finish one book, you pick another. Graduate middle school, you enter high school. Complete a project, a new one awaits. Watching the ocean on my last day in San Francisco lightened my heart because that end was the start of a new beginning in Seoul, so I could just keep walking forward. 🌊
But isn’t retirement a bit different? Even if you stand at Lands End, gazing across the Pacific, it might not feel like ‘it’s just tiresome; the new beginning is across that ocean.’ Instead, the severed paths and inability to move forward might bring sorrow. Or perhaps, there’s joy in breaking free from the endlessly repetitive daily grind. ✨
Seeing everyone celebrate, it seems more like the latter, but honestly, I can’t be sure. 🤷♂️
Leave a Reply