It Took a Month to Put the End in Motion and Start the Beginning

There I was, running a successful business in the Spring of 2020, when like most others, I was hit with the challenges of the COVID pandemic. Thankfully, I was my own boss, and was able to avoid significant exposure, requiring clients to meet with my by phone or online, having staff work from home, and being a quick study for incorporating Zoom and other online workflows to accommodate the necessary tasks at hand. Other than the stress of significant changes, we really didn’t skip a beat, business-wise. Fast forward to the end of the year, and I came to realize that I could take what I had learned in adjusting to the pandemic to cut expenses and create a virtual office. So I started looking into it.

Meanwhile, stress at the office was an all-time high, and I had become less and less tolerant of the unending difficulties that saturated my work. I had always assumed I would retire at age 65, but at 63, I was not certain I could tolerate the heavy load for two more years.
While I investigated the idea of a virtual office, I started musing about what life might be like with no work at all. Quick meeting with my financial advisor, and I found I was good to go! This all occurred in January 2021. By February, I had researched and decided on my retirement location, and my DH and I had hired a realtor in Georgia. By March, we located and purchased a home, and put together this and that to get our existing home sales-ready. We listed in April, sold the home in 4 days, and prepared for the big move!

It all happened so fast, but being a hard worker, I buried myself in the tasks at hand (selling furniture at home and at the office, finalizing client matters or setting up referrals, canceling services, transferring client files, scanning and shredding confidential information–OMG!) and didn’t give much thought to what life would be like on the other side of the chaos. On May 27, 2021, we loaded the house plants (about 60) in one car and the two dogs in another and made the drive from Porter County, IN to Georgia, leaving our empty, sold house behind. I arrived at the new house at around 4 AM the next morning, jumping into bed to be up in time to meet the movers at 8 AM!
Below: The last picture I took of our Indiana home right before driving off, leaving it, and my career, behind.

Quick study in January, and the decision was made–my business was closed and I was out! Hard to believe I walked away from all that I worked so hard to build and the fruits of these labors. But here I am and there is no time to waste to enjoy the calm, freedom and new adventures of retirement!