On August 4, 2024, there were 150 calendar days left until the end of the year. Even though we had not yet signed the contracts, my husband and I decided to begin cutting our soft tape measures. One centimeter each evening. Each time, we would pause and admire how the tape grew shorter. The ritual felt childlike and enjoyable, a small daily celebration of what was coming.

On August 20, I had my final call with the woman from the external consultancy. We reviewed all the numbers once more. Everything was now correct.

Then the conversation shifted unexpectedly into something warm and personal. She told me she was pregnant with her first child and about to begin a new chapter in her life. I shared that I had children as well. She asked, “Boys or girls?”

“I have two boys.” I paused. “But one came out as trans during puberty.”

That opened a deeper exchange about what the transition had been like for me emotionally and how intense and stressful that period had been.

“Enjoy your life in retirement,” she said.

“Thank you. I will. And I deserve it. It has been a very stressful time.”

That evening, I sent the email asking her to trigger the preparation of the contract.

After that, something odd began to happen. There was always a fly at the window in whichever room I entered. Not the small houseflies, but the larger ones that buzz loudly and persistently. Instead of chasing them, I opened the window and let each one out.

But as soon as I did, another would appear. Just one. After I released that one, the next would come. It was peculiar.

Years ago, I had read a story about a guru merging his consciousness with a fly and observing a student through the fly’s eyes. The memory surfaced unexpectedly. What was going on here? Was this connected to the date, to the fact that I had just set the contract in motion? Was I being watched?

The flies were still there the next day.

Then a blog post by Wendy appeared in my WordPress feed. She described a dream in which a hummingbird had accidentally become trapped inside her house and was eventually freed. The story ended with the words “Fly free.”

Maybe that was the message. Fly free.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

After signing up and being accepted into the early retirement program, things should have become easier. Instead, there was trouble ahead.

We had several in-depth consultation meetings with an external provider to clarify the exact parameters of the early retirement contract. How many vacation days had we saved? How much did we want to pay into our time account until the end of 2024? How much did we want to reduce our salary during the retirement phase? If one took less money per month, the severance package would last longer.

I intended to stretch the severance pay to the maximum. Therefore, I chose the minimum allowed part-time percentage.

I realized that going from seventy to eighty percent part-time as of June 2024 was not going to give me the intended result of closing the gap to the official retirement age. To the contrary, unfortunately, it widened the gap because the allowed retirement percentage depended on an average percentage of work during the last twelve months before retirement. Since my average work percentage before retirement was now higher, it also had to be higher during the retirement phase. Which meant the severance pay would not last as long.

But that wasn’t the only issue. In addition, in my case, the part-time percentage for the retirement phase was not calculated accurately. Because I had increased my workload from 70 percent to 80 percent part-time as of June 2024, the calculation became more complex.

Too complex, it seemed, for HR.

As a result, the gap between the end of the severance pay and the start of my pension became even larger, which would have meant starting my pension much earlier than planned.

If necessary, I could start my pension before age sixty-seven, but that would require additional pension reductions. Financially, that can make sense in cases of lower life expectancy. However, if one lives longer, it is more beneficial to start the pension as late as possible and without reductions.

I do not know how long I will live.

But I aimed for a later pension with no reductions. That felt like the safer option for me.

What followed were endless support tickets in an attempt to get HR and the consulting firm to calculate the numbers correctly. It did not work. HR referred me to the consultancy. The consultancy referred me back to HR.

After several rounds of battle, I was ready to give up.

So what if the gap to my pension were larger? So what if I had to accept additional reductions? Maybe I would not live long enough for it to matter. Was it really worth this endless fight?

Then, on July 24, 2024, I had a dream.

I was walking along a path when I suddenly noticed a tortoise behind me. Not slow, as tortoises usually are. It moved with surprising speed and determination. It was coming straight at me.

I tried to walk faster, but I could not escape.

Then it lunged and tried to bite me. Not just once, but several times.

I felt baffled. And annoyed. Why would it not stop?

When I woke up, I reflected on the symbolism. A tortoise often represents longevity. Perhaps longevity would bite me if I did not put more effort into resolving the HR issue.

All right. One more round.

This time, instead of creating another HR ticket, I wrote a detailed email outlining the issue and its long history.

And, lo and behold, I received a response. The issue was corrected. I was able to reduce the monthly payout and keep the gap until my pension age minimal.

Now it was finally time to relax.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

By the end of April 2024, the exact conditions for the voluntary early retirement program were released. After three long months of anxious waiting, we finally had clarity about the severance package. Compared to the previous program, the conditions were a bit disappointing, but overall the severance pay was still good enough. We let out a huge sigh of relief.

At the beginning of May, we signed up and waited to see whether we would be accepted.

In mid-May, I had one of my monthly one-on-one talks with my boss. Toward the end of the meeting, he said that for planning purposes they would like to know how many people intended to retire early this year. He asked me whether I had signed up and how likely it was that I would accept an offer if I received one. At that point, I did not yet know whether my husband or I would be accepted.

I could have kept this to myself and told him much later, maybe in the fall of 2024. But I understood his perspective. If a quarter of the staff was about to leave in a business-critical environment and he needed to hire and train successors, it made sense to start early.

So I disclosed my decision.

“Yes, I have signed up. And if I get an offer, the probability that I will leave is very high.”

Phew. I said it.

What if I did not get an offer, and now my boss knew about my plans to leave? How would this affect our future work relationship?

Never mind. The relationship had already been damaged earlier by my anger and my subsequent withdrawal after not receiving enough appreciation for my work. It probably could not become worse than it already was.

Now that I had disclosed this, I asked him for a favor. Because there would be a gap between the end of the severance payments and the start of my pension, I wanted to increase my part-time percentage from seventy to eighty percent for the rest of the year. Would that be feasible? I figured this would allow me to pay more into my time account and get closer to my pension age.

Fortunately, he agreed and triggered the process immediately. I started working eighty percent as of June.

As it would turn out later, this decision was a mixed bag and caused a few hiccups further down the retirement process.

The next four weeks were waiting time again. Waiting to see whether we would be accepted.

After weeks of intense reading and deep dives into pension and tax-related material, I was exhausted and could have used a break. But the universe did not grant me one. On May 17, 2024, I was suddenly confronted with a large amount of work at home, helping a family member with administrative matters. It was a period of high pressure, high intensity, and high adrenaline for me. Four weeks later, everything was finally resolved. I felt immense relief, but I was also completely drained and close to burnout.

On June 19, 2024, we were informed that we had been accepted into the program. Yay. Time for sparkling wine.

On June 24, 2024, I completed a particular quality check at work. It was a task I had to perform only once a year, and I hated it. That day, however, it was the last time I would ever have to do it. When it finished without errors, I felt relieved and went out for lunch.

After lunch, on my way back to the office, I noticed two people walking ahead of me in T-shirts. The one on the left read Freedom. The one on the right read Starter. Together, they said Freedom Starter.

Later, sitting at my desk with a cup of tea and scrolling through my blog feed, I noticed two posts with the word freedom in the title. One was called “Opening Your Freedom Gates.” The other was “Heralds of Freedom.”

Yes. Freedom was the right message for that day.

Another Word for Retirement

In online discussions, I read people asking for a better word for retirement. They did not like the word. It sounded too passive. Too much like withdrawal and disengagement. Was there not a better option?

Someone responded that we should follow Spain’s example. There, retirement is called jubilación, which sounds more like jubilate, to shout with joy.

When I told the Asian man I encountered at the glider field in April 2024 that I would retire soon, he said, “Then you start your peace-life.” Peace felt like a fitting option too.

Or freedom, like in today’s messages from the universe.

Joy, peace, freedom. I was looking forward to all of it.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

On April 7, 2024, I took a walk around a small lake in the forest. I stopped at benches along the way and enjoyed the view, sinking into a deep relaxation.

In my mind, there was a steady stream of thoughts about the early retirement program.

It’s over. Wow. I can’t believe it’s over. This is so great. No more stress. No more struggles. I can relax now. I am so grateful. It’s over.

I thought of the long arc of my working life, the years of chemistry studies with their intense workload, all the way through my doctoral dissertation at twenty seven, and then another twenty seven years in the corporate world. All that work. And for what? It would soon be over, just like that.

Halfway around the lake, a voice suddenly pulled me out of that state.

“Help! Help!” a man was yelling.

I turned around and hurried back to the last fork in the path where the sound had come from. A man stood beside his wife, who had fallen and was lying on the gravel. There was blood on her head, and she was unconscious.

“Karin, don’t die!” he shouted in desperation. His wife was also named Karin, just like me.

We tried to wake her. I cannot see or feel spirits, but I imagined her consciousness hovering above her body and urged her to come back. I have no idea whether that made any difference, but a few moments later she regained consciousness, though she was badly disoriented from the concussion.

The man did not have a phone, so he asked me to call an ambulance, which I did. I stayed with them, trying to calm her, until the paramedics arrived and took over.

Afterward, I walked away, shaken. What stayed with me was his cry, “Karin, don’t die.” I took it as a message meant for me. My job might be ending, but my life was not. I was not meant to disappear into some kind of afterlife of rest. I was meant to stay alive, awake, and engaged

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

My guidance kept nudging me toward early retirement with more signs. On March 19, 2024, the topic of death appeared three times in a single day.

First, a WordPress blogger wrote about a friend with cancer who was considering medically assisted suicide. While I did not know him, I felt shaken. How desperate must he have felt to reach that point?

Later, when I took a walk around the fields, I overheard a conversation between a neighbor and a friend who asked why she was dressed in black. She replied that she had attended a funeral and added, “The pastor said life is short. We are all only guests here.”

That evening, my husband told me that the father of one of his colleagues had died the day before.

I felt sadness and compassion hearing about these deaths, along with a strange alertness about the timing. Three instances on the same day felt like more than a coincidence. It felt like an urgent message. Memento mori. Remember that you will die.

What did I want to do with the time I had left? Was there something beyond the corporate grind? I took it as a nudge to accept the early retirement program and enjoy life, because you never know what comes next.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.