“My job was my identity, so I have to learn how to live life.”
It’ll work out. Same thing happened for my husband. The first three months were hellish for him/us. Slowly he turned his attention to a hobby he loved and now he’s in that groove.
In June, he got a call from a prior employer, a DoD contractor, wanting him to come back and manage a project. He considered it, then declined. After 13 years of retirement he couldn’t imagine getting back into the travel, the pace, the ALARM CLOCK, the office politics, etc.
Before COVID, my plan was to retire in 2023/2024 but my employer had us work from home during COVID and the building we used fell into disrepair so I’ve been working from home for the last 5 years or so. There’s no new building in the future so I can work out of my basement for a while yet. If I retired today, I would still have to find something to do but that means driving so I decided to just stay at my current job as long as we like each other. Its nice having the option to walk away of I had too.