In short, No. Not even a little bit.
The 2023 school year finished on 8 December. My workplace had undergone some changes which had the potential to create a much nicer place to work. In addition, I was fortunate enough to be planning some extended leave to enjoy time on our beautiful yacht as well as indulging in some overseas travel. My idea was that this break would achieve two things. Firstly, I would have a break from an emotionally demanding job to re-charge the batteries. Secondly, I was spending some time with Mr Jones who IS retired and needing to get on with some things we had been talking about and planning. At this time, I was planning to keep working until after my 55th birthday in 2027. Three more years of full-time work.
I spent some time considering the next five years of my working life. Mr Jones has been mostly retired since around 2020. There has been some back and forth, mostly in my mind, about when I will retire. Sometimes I feel like he is waiting for me to retire so he can do all the things he wants to do. I don’t really want to leave a profession I am passionate about just for his entertainment. The leave and the travel were a compromise of sorts. My five-year plan was to stay at my job until I was 55, until 2027.
2024 brought some unexpected turns. We got into a conflict with a couple who had purchased a share in our yacht in 2022. The conflict was basically a personality conflict but centered on paying for ongoing maintenance and how much care each partner was taking with the yacht. Neither wanted to admit they were wrong. In the end the other man threw a large amount of money at his problem and we now we have a reasonable amount of cash in the bank and they have our boat. The key life lesson of this; don’t sell a share of something you love, business or large asset, to anyone. They won’t love it like you do. They won’t respect the care you put in to it and most importantly, there will be unresolvable conflict. It was an emotional time for us, but it made me sit back and take stock. I asked myself, “What is it that I really want?” I guess the best way to find out what you want is to have it taken away.
After we returned home from our travels, I went back to work. Despite the promising start to the year things had not panned out so great. Sometimes in a workplace, massive surface level changes mask the sad fact that the fundamental problems have not been addressed. After ten weeks of choosing where I went and what I did for the whole day, I did not adjust well to being back at work and spending my days dealing with the effects of other people’s bad parenting and my overlord’s bad management choices. My plans to stick things out for three more years fell by the wayside as I resigned from my full-time job. My last day of full-time work was 6 December.
So Christmas 2024 finds me researching camping sites, round the world airline tickets and fitting out our new caravan. We have two trips on the drawing board exploring parts of Australia that aren’t on everyone’s top ten. So 2025 will feature #travellingboob in more spectacular locations. Just with less water. Workwise, I will be a substitute teacher. I am looking forward to having flexibility and the power to say to work when and where I choose. I am looking forward to being about to travel outside of designated school holidays and not have a deadline for getting home so I can get back to work. It will be interesting to see where the road takes me.
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