Congratulations Quirky! Yes it is emotional saying goodbye to Co workers and I even cried when hugging some goodbye. It was just as hard leaving our home and I cried when the front door shut for the last time. So many emotions arose when saying goodbye to family and friends before moving to TV. I was not expecting retiring, and the big move to be that hard so I do understand.

I can tell you it won't take long for you to adjust to your new life. What your feeling now is temporary. You'll be so busy doing things you've dreamed of you won't have time to think of what you left behind.

I find Skype invaluable for keeping in touch with family and friends. Good luck to you in your new adventure in life.

Congratulations! I found that it took me 6 months to realize I was retired and not just on vacation. I think you will find that if you only had work in common with your work friends those relationships will slowly end. Enjoy yourself.

How was it pulling the emotional plug moving away from kids and grand kids?

I have always lived more than an 8 hour drive from family members, and we would visit as often as possible by flying. WHen I moved to Florida, my closest relatives were in upstate NY, PA and MD, and they were happy to visit me, especially in the winter.

I have used Skype, facebook, texting, and phone to keep in touch regularly. Also tools like Shutterfly for photo albums.

I know a lot of people are in a different situation, and moving would change their face to face frequency with family members.

I know what you mean about saying goodbye to co-workers. It is very hard. They had a big luncheon for me (55 people), gave a speech, asked me to say a few words and I was tongue-tied. Then my workers from my old office had another luncheon (45 people), I had to say goodbye to all of them. Then my boss wanted to take me to lunch. We said goodbye. Then he wanted to take my husband and I to dinner so we did that saying goodbye again. Then on the day we were packing our pod on our last day in Ohio my boss came to the house and watched us load up. It was so hard to say goodbye. I loved all of my co-workers but once all of that was done I was so ready to get on the road to come down here for our new life. It has been great. 6 years so far and we still know it was the best decision we've ever made.

On January 15th, you'll say'

"I'll never forget what's their name". :D

Congrats on your impending retirement. :smiley:

Congratulations! The only hard part for me is talking to past coworkers or clients that I have kept in contact with and containing my (retirement) excitement.

We live in one of the most incredible and exciting places for retirees.

Going into our fourth week of getting settled in our forever home.

Come have fun with us Quirky3!

My wife was afraid that I wasnt ready for retirement. I proved her wrong. I caught on very quickly and Im very good at it. TV will do that to You. Also work friends are just that. friends at work. Once work is gone , with few exceptions, so are they. I dont miss them.

I got to retire in 1998 when I was 52. I was an IT director and for two years they kept asking me if I was ready to come back. Never took them up on their offer. Just remember the job was you and you were not the job. You did the things you had to do then so now you can do the things you want to do.