If I haven’t made it obvious, I’m not a big fan of work. I don’t necessarily hate all work, but I hate how it takes my time. I hate how it makes me too tired to do much else during the week. I hate how it makes me feel.

We had nearly nine months off of work during Covid (not because of Covid), and this gave us a glimpse into Early Retirement. It was wonderful. We woke up when we wanted to, we did touristy things during the week and stayed inside on busy weekends when the rest of the world was enjoying their days off. We cooked more. We exercised more. Our time was our own.

A couple of weeks ago I took a week off of work with my husband. Aside from Christmas break, this was my first vacation since I started working (I’m very very very lucky to work for a company with an unlimited vacation policy). We went to stay with my brother and his family and it was absolutely wonderful. We didn’t do anything exciting, just lots of walking, eating and drinking.

It. Was. Wonderful. I was so relaxed, and yet I also had energy and felt lighter than I’d felt in months. When I went back to work, it felt like I had been hit by a bus. I was so tired and lethargic. You’re supposed to return from vacation feeling refreshed and energized. I felt the complete opposite. For the first few days I could barely get through the day without feeling like I might just fall asleep at my desk. The week off was a reminder of how we felt during our early retirement trial last year. I think maybe going back to work this time was extra painful, because we’d had that long stretch of time off before. We knew what it felt like to be on “vacation” and feel relaxed for weeks at a time.

It’s not just that the hours you spend working are taken away from you, it’s also how working affects your time before and after work. By the time I’m finished work for the evening, I’m usually completely drained, I have brain fatigue and don’t feel like doing anything but watch mindless tv. Often the last thing I want to do is cook a meal or exercise. Saturday mornings are usually my favorite weekend time. I like to get up early and have a tea and read on the couch early in the AM before doing anything else. This last Saturday was different. I knew I needed to do something for work. It wouldn’t take me more than 20-25 minutes and there was no time it needed to be done by. But when I opened my eyes Saturday morning, instead of being excited to get up, I just lay there trying to fall back asleep – simply because I had to complete a task for someone else. My Saturday morning no longer belonged to me. I’m aware that not everyone has quite the same adverse feelings towards work. Some people have jobs they absolutely love. Some people have jobs that are completely stress free and that they “leave at the office” when they are done for the day. I envy these people.

But this is also part of our why. Time off is always a reminder of why we are pursuing FI. We want to take our time back and be able to spend it how we please. We want to live a life where we’re not too tired in the evenings to make dinner. I want to live a life where my brain isn’t so tired at the end of the day that I don’t even feel like I have the mental capacity to read a book or write a blog post.

So for now, we will continue to work hard at our jobs, we will continue to save as much as we can so that one day our time will be our own again.