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Today (December 29) was my mom’s birthday. If she was still alive she would have turned 79 years old today. But she left us in 1989, at 59-1/2 (to the day), so in my mind and heart she will always be 59.

Today was also my last day working for someone else.  Or, the last day when I have to work for anyone else.  I chose today as my last day to honor my mom who basically worked up until she was too sick to work any more – which was only about 6-8 weeks before she passed away.  I also chose to stop working this year because I, too, am 59, and I choose to enjoy the rest of the time I have here on earth instead of feeling like I have to keep striving.

Through a number of “lucky” circumstances, I can take my pension now and not have to worry about working for anyone else.  What a wonderful freedom that allows me!

It’s interesting that I never really thought about being here – at retirement age – and having worked more than 20 years for an organization that has given me this opportunity.  I don’t think anyone consciously makes the decision to work someplace for 20 years!  I did leave a few times – in fact I was gone for about 18 years – and if I’d worked straight through, I’d be completing year 34. 

But, I had other plans, and so I went off and did other things.  Things that allowed me to grow as an individual and gave me direct experience of other work cultures.  A job that gave me a nice 401k. A job that gave me lots of confidence in my ability to run a large organization. A period of small business partnership and one working as a solopreneur.  And then I came back and applied what I learned to a job that seemed worth doing at the time.

In all honesty, I am now at a point where I am glad I made the decision years ago to go to work for this organization, as creatively stifling as it mostly was. I was smart, and alert, and generally able to mold my job into something I enjoyed, or able to promote into something new. I like the benefits my husband and I will now enjoy as a result.

At the same time, I can see what it cost me to work here in the first place and I remember clearly why I left the first two times.  I know the toll it’s taken on my aliveness, on my enthusiasm, even on my happiness and peace of mind.

I am lucky that I have usually been able to maintain a sense of myself and my integrity regardless of the circumstances surrounding me.  But that’s not the same as doing a job you love and feeling appreciated and rewarded for doing it well.

So that’s exactly what the rest of my life will be: doing the work I love and being rewarded for doing it well.  And I’m lucky my rewards can now extend beyond just cash compensation – they include my own satisfaction, my sense of contribution, and my shear delight.

So yes, in some ways I’m sorry I wasn’t able to permanently institute this shift before now.  I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit and love working for myself!  Since I have almost always had part-time businesses I guess you could call me a serial entrepreneur.  But I don’t regret the choices I did make.  And somehow, I think Mom would be proud of me for getting to this place of being able to do what I want, simply for the joy of it.