February 10, 2025 11:45 PM
One month in
How's retirement?
I don't think I ever mentioned this earlier, but there was one morning late last year where my right eye started twitching. I was pretty upset the night before and I had been crying, so I figured it was just a side effect of that. But even after a few days, the twitching did not go away. My right eye would twitch many times every day for over a month. And I think that my left eye would twitch occasionally as well.
Well, I realized a couple of weeks ago that my eye stopped twitching. I think it's because I have more sleep and less stress.
And less coffee! I've noticed in the past that if I have a day where I don't drink any coffee, there's a very good chance that I'll get a headache that just lasts all day. So I wanted to slowly remove my dependence on caffeine. I did get a few headaches this past month, but I think I'm actually past the withdrawal headaches now. I'm currently drinking it every other day-ish, and man, I can really feel the difference. I didn't realize how big of an effect caffeine had on my system, and it affects me all day. When I don't have it, it's like I never truly wake up.
Don't get me wrong, I love coffee. But I just want it to be a nice treat and not some habit that my life depends on.
So to wake up every day, I've been trying to have a really solid morning routine. I make sure to put on moisturizer (with SPF!) every morning (even on cloudy days!). I'll leisurely make myself breakfast (by that I mean a real balanced breakfast with vegetables and protein). And I'll either read a book or the paper (yeah, I get the neighborhood paper delivered).
And then if I have time, I'll try to write a journal entry. Not a blog entry, but a handwritten page in a physical journal. Of course I've been trying to blog more as well. I've already written so many food blog entries this year! I'm happy about that, but I already feel like I might be adding them (as well as cooking) at an unsustainable pace. So I'm trying to figure out the right balance for that. Oddly enough, mixing blogging with doing more technical updates makes it a lot more enjoyable. I'm currently working on getting all my active projects on github!
Right now my focus is mainly food and finances, but I'm also trying to make sure that I socialize with others. (I really feel like this was lacking for me all of last year.) It's been really good to be able to eat out or cook with a friend, to attend game nights, and to talk to people at meetups. I'm still pretty quiet most of the time, but even the smallest interaction with someone makes a big difference to me.
I definitely have some down days and sometimes it's hard to get myself to do the more "productive" things that I planned to do. So I'm also trying to be kind to myself. I know I don't have to cook every day. It's okay if I waste an hour (or more) watching youtube or browsing social media.
And so last night, after I had spent a couple of hours watching highlights of the Super Bowl and reading reactions on Reddit, I decided to make myself some hot chocolate and play some Stardew Valley. It was already past midnight, but I knew I didn't have to wake up early the next day, and I had a pretty cozy time just rearranging my farm.
January 20, 2025 4:25 PM
One week in
In the first week of my sabbatical, I made sure to squeeze in as much as I possibly could. I only had two months, and I wanted to make the most of it. But this is different. I have as much time as I want, so I'm taking things more slowly.
So how does it feel to be retired?
It's a little weird to hear it out loud. When I first decided that I wanted to retire early, I told lots of people. It seemed like such a cool thing to do, but it also seemed so far away. I had big dreams! It's easy to tell people that you have big dreams. Even if they don't understand, they just shrug it off and figure your plans will change over time.
Now that it's real, I just tell people that I'm taking a break from working. It's still true! I just don't know how long the break will be. A year? A few years? Forever? I don't know, and that's okay.
So to answer the question, I don't think it's fully sunk in. I still feel anxious about money. I am very diligently tracking all of my spending. I think I will keep doing that at least through the end of the year.
But there's also a new sense of calm. I still think about the next seven meals that I'm going to have, but I'm no longer so worried about it. I have time to cook. I don't have to worry about making sure that I have something that's easy for me to heat up for lunch the next day because I need to wedge it into my busy workday.
Dan and I went to a DDR tournament this past weekend, and it was snowing quite a lot on Sunday. In the past, the snow would have been something that would probably make me anxious. What if we got stranded at Penn State?
Well, I suppose that wouldn't be so bad. I took Dan's hand and we walked in the snow to get some lunch and it was nice to just enjoy the scenery and the people around us.