Time is a funny thing. I can remember stuff I did 3 years ago as though it was just yesterday. When I see the date 2003 on something I am amazed sometimes that it was now practically five years ago!
But now that I am anticipating my last day at work at my current job, a day I anticipate with much glee, it seems as though time is standing still. 
I’ve decided to put together a list of ways I will survive the year. This is a list I will come back to whenever I feel as though I can’t take another day and feel as though there is no way this year will ever end. Not only that, but when I come back to look at this post, it will be a date in the past.
1. Someday this post will not only be a date in the recent past, but it will be an ancient post hanging with cobwebs. I’ll wonder why I ever wrote it.
2. I am taking so many classes that I won’t have time to think about time. By the time this year is over, I’ll be completely exhausted and ready to collapse into retirement.
3. My friends will help me get through this. We all have our crosses to bear, this just happens to be mine right now.
4. This too shall pass!
5. I am grateful for my current paycheck. I may miss it someday (but I hope not).
6. I love everything I’m learning this year and I love making new friends. It seems like years since I have made new friends. By the time I am retired, there is no way I will be bored because I will have so much going on.
7. Did I mention that I am madly and wildly in love with my cat? She’d better still be here when this year is up! This reminds me to savor each day and be grateful for more than just the paycheck I’m currently receiving.
8. Maybe I’ll miss some of the people I currently work with and maybe I’ll miss the hum of the data center, although I don’t get to spend as much time in one as I used to. Maybe, maybe not. Better savor the year because it certainly will go by. 
9. High school! I remember when I was in high school and for some strange reason (I know this is very weird) I wished that it would go on forever. Well, it didn’t.
10. The Army. I remember one day six months into my tour of duty wondering aloud how I’d every make it 3 years! That was in 1973. Yikes.
3 responses so far ↓
1 RetiredSyd // Jan 19, 2008 at 11:36 am
Cheryl:
I know how you feel! I told my employer in May of 2007 that I would be retiring, that I was flexible as to the date, but that I would like it to be by the end of 2007 (but also that I would stay until we found my replacement and got him/her up to speed.)
They started interviewing candidates in September and by November, it became apparent that the yearend target was out of the question. Already, that time between May and November seemed interminable.
I wish that I thought of such a constructive idea as you with your list of ways to survive. My approach was just to get crankier and crankier, not a very good way to live the last 8 months!
I hope you can continue to focus on all the future joy and keep finding joy in the planning and fantasizing so that your year will whiz by happily.
RetiredSyd
2 lissie // Feb 11, 2008 at 1:09 am
Do you have a definite date? Why not plan a nice overseas trip for just after that date - that way they can’t extend you at the last minute!
3 Cheryl // Feb 11, 2008 at 7:27 am
Hi Lissie, I do have a date. I like your idea of planning an overseas trip just for that date so I’m truly committed. I’ll be doing one possibly shortly before, too. I love to travel.
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