I Wasn’t Expecting to Retire at 49

I wasn’t expecting to retire at 49.

Actually, technically, I’m not retired yet.

That’s probably the first thing I should explain.

I accepted the deferred resignation offer that was announced for federal employees in January, but my actual retirement isn’t scheduled to happen until the end of the year. In the meantime, I’m on administrative leave and still getting my full paycheck.

So I’m not going to work anymore.

But I’m not technically retired yet.

It’s a pretty strange place to be.

I Was Waiting for an Early-Out

I’ve been thinking about early retirement for a long time.

Early in my federal career, it seemed like there was an early-out opportunity almost every year. I always had this idea in the back of my mind that if they offered me one when I was around 50, I was going to take it.

I planned for it. I saved for it.

I started my federal career in September of 1999, so I hit 25 years of federal service in September 2024.

I will turn 50 in August 2025.

So by the beginning of this year, I had finally reached the point I’d been waiting for.

Except I had pretty much stopped expecting the opportunity to actually come.

It had been several years since we’d had an early-out that I could take advantage of, and I had resigned myself to working several more years.

I was finally eligible. I just didn’t think I’d ever get the chance.

A Car for the Commute

After we hit that deer in December, my Jeep was gone.

I needed something to drive, and at the time, I was working downtown four days a week. So I needed something reliable for the commute.

Chris was the one who talked me into test-driving a Tesla Model Y.

According to him, I was giggling the whole time when I floored it. Zero to sixty in about four seconds will do that to a person.

We picked it up on January 25. It was the ideal car for a 60-mile commute to Kansas City.

Then January 28th happened!

The Fork in the Road

After Donald Trump took office in January, things started changing pretty quickly for the federal workforce.

On January 28, the Office of Personnel Management announced the deferred resignation program that became known as the “Fork in the Road.”

And suddenly, there it was. The opportunity I’d been waiting for.

The decision had to be made quickly.

There wasn’t a year to think about it. There wasn’t even a few months.

It was basically: Here’s the offer. Decide.

For me, though, this wasn’t really a decision that came out of nowhere. I’d been preparing for the possibility of early retirement for years.

I had already decided that if the opportunity ever came along, I was going to take it.

Chris and I talked it through at length, and he supported my decision.

So I did. I submitted my paperwork.

And just like that, I was leaving a career I’d spent more than 25 years building.

Or Maybe Not Quite Yet

There was one little complication.

My bosses were hoping I might be able to stay a few extra weeks to help with the transition.

I was actually okay with that. I’d been there a long time, and if staying a little longer made things easier for everyone, I was willing to do it.

So even after I had made my decision and submitted everything, there was still some uncertainty about exactly when I would be done.

For a while, it sounded like I might work a few more weeks.

Even at my retirement party on February 25, we weren’t completely sure whether that was going to happen.

Then, the next day, we found out that wasn’t going to happen. I had to turn everything in on the 28th.

I was done.

My Retirement Party

So we had a retirement party anyway.

There was cake. They decorated my desk. Apparently, there was no sneaking back in.

There were cards and notes from people I’d worked with, too.

I’ve spent more than 25 years working for the federal government.

That’s a long time.

Long enough to have worked with a lot of people. Long enough to have watched people come and go. Long enough to have routines and inside jokes and frustrations and friendships that become part of your everyday life without you really thinking about it.

And then suddenly, I’m standing at my retirement party.

It was a little surreal.

So Here I Am

And now it’s March. I’m 49 years old.

I’m not going to work anymore.

I’m on administrative leave, still getting my full paycheck, and my actual retirement isn’t scheduled to happen until the end of the year.

And there are still plenty of questions about exactly how all of this is going to play out.

From the beginning, there were people saying the Fork in the Road program wasn’t legal. There have been lawsuits and arguments over the program, and some people have suggested that employees who accepted the offer could eventually be told to come back to work or could end up being laid off instead.

Those conversations are still happening.

I don’t really expect to be called back to work.

But they are still litigating this as I write, so I don’t know exactly what the next several months are going to look like.

And that’s part of what makes this whole thing so strange.

I wasn’t planning to retire at 49.

I was planning to work a few more years.

I had pretty much convinced myself that the early-out I’d been waiting for wasn’t going to happen.

And then it did.

Just not quite the way I imagined it.

For now, I have the farm. I have projects around the house.

I have places I want to go. People I want to spend more time with.

And this blog that I’ve been neglecting.

Apparently, I’m going to have some time to work on all of that now.

I don’t have a five-year retirement plan.

Honestly, I don’t even have a five-day plan at this point.

I’m just going to see what happens.

Because after spending more than 25 years working, I’m still getting used to the idea that I don’t have to go back on Monday.

Well…

At least, I don’t think I do.