Well, that was it then!

This was the way it looked the last time I walked away from the place I had worked for about 35 years. Funnily enough, I had not one twinge of regret that night although a year before I would have considered myself not ready for retirement and had planned to work for a couple of years longer.

Then one morning, I woke up and suddenly decided I didn’t want to work any more. Instead there was an irrepressible feeling that I had to get out and get a taste of what others would have considered to be a normal life. I could start off with proper reading, proper cooking. Even ironing and tidying cupboards were all self indulgent novelties for me.

There were other things too. I like collecting things (hoarding really). The hoard was desperately in need of organisation. Maybe I could get rid of some of it and make room for new things. I would look out my stamp collection and all the paraphenelia associated with it. And I would paint in water-colours and oils. I might knit and sew. I would learn about the stockmarket and the economy and history and politics and philosophy and……..

I might travel a little but not too much.

I of course I would be able to spend more time with my family.

And then there was the garden. I love gardening but there was never enough time….

There was so much to do in the garden….

The garden had become a wilderness……

During that last hour of my last day at work, the sky became red as I walked to the car for the last time.

I felt there should be some regret, some sentimentality.

But there was none.

I was looking forward too much to a brand new life of freedom.

I didn’t know what freedom felt like.

It seemed as if I had not been free since the day I started school at the age of five.

And I realised it for the first time that evening.

Photo taken with iPhone. Photographer me.