Today is the first day of my retirement from state service — officially. My last day on the payroll was Tuesday, but I had two days of vacation still so I burned them and didn’t go to work Monday or Tuesday. This morning I was no longer on the payroll.

I spent a big chunk of Monday morning and the first hour or two of the afternoon on my bike riding a thirty-mile loop around Madison, just because I could. Tuesday I took it easy, walking a loop around the arboretum. Both days, I spent quite a bit of time at home doing boring domestic chores like washing clothes and dishes, vacuuming the floors and otherwise tidying up. But today being my first day of retirement, I wanted to do as little as possible, just out of principle.

Ironically, I got up before first light in response to an alarm clock. My Darling B is still working for the man, and she had to go in to the office to work today, so when her alarm went off, I got up to make sure she had hot coffee waiting for her after she was done hitting the snooze button. After seeing Barb off to work, though, the only chores I did were loading up the dishwasher and raking the cat boxes, chores I have always done and will always have to do whether I’m working for a paycheck or not.

I still went for a walk after seeing B off to work, and I took a bike ride around the lake following my postprandial nap, just because the weather was beautiful, sunshiny and warm and we don’t have too many more days of that this year, but mostly I’ve been able to do what I wanted today, which was practically nothing at all. It’s starting to soak in, this idea that all I have to do from now on is whatever I want to do. Feels good.