When Enough is Enough ...

A friend recently told me, "You're too young to retire!  Why not stay two more years to increase your pension?  You would be making 75% of your salary!"  Why not indeed?  I've been thinking hard about this.  My twin sister, who works for the VA, makes more than twice as much money as I do, but is always stressed out from coping with report deadlines, a workaholic boss, and deadbeat employees.  And yet she will not consider leaving until 2016, when she is eligible for Full Retirement & generous federal bennies. 

Meanwhile, Poverty-Stricken Me wants to throw in the towel at 51 despite a wallet full of credit cards and considerable debt.  Am I bored, even lazy?  Perhaps.  But I didn't get this way without help.  For one thing, I haven't been promoted since Bruce Springsteen wore blue jean nappies.  Even weirdos have received more consideration -- one of them was a colleague who got promoted 3 times while trimming her toenails and complaining to me that she is overworked and that her wrists hurt.  (From what?  Excessive wrist rotation from overactive toenail growth?) 

So I am retiring, calling it a day, engines are now disengaging, Captain.  Not just because 50 is the mimimum age for early retirement in my neck of the woods.  But also because, over the last year or so, it is now clear that the lack of acknowledgment / promotion / new desk inlaid with rare Neapolitan woods also rankles.  I'll miss my friends when I leave.  But continuing to work under these circumstances would be foolish and, ultimately, self-destructive.

                           

                                        Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
                                         And sorry I could not travel both
                                         And be one traveler, long I stood
                                         And looked down one as far as I could
                                        To where it bent in the undergrowth ..

                                                                                            Robert Frost