In 2018, at age 55, I retired after 32 years with the same company.

Five years before that, the company decided to raise the retirement age from 55 to 65 with 25 years of service. Thankfully, I had already met the age requirement. I was “grandfathered in.”

That phrase never sounded so beautiful. I’d never been so proud to qualify for something simply because I was already old enough.

Ordinarily, I would’ve stayed until 65, so I wouldn’t mess with my Social Security. That was the responsible plan. But my body started holding meetings without my permission. Knees voting “no.” Back filing complaints. Balance requesting reassignment.

You can’t very well do HVAC work if climbing a ladder feels like you’re auditioning for a slow-motion fall.

I turned 55 on August 15, 2018. When I realized I had 42 months until I could retire, I started a quiet countdown.

Every morning, I took readings on the plant’s main HVAC equipment. On the wall was a massive 6 x 4 dry-erase board where I logged the numbers. Up in the far-left corner, I wrote one simple number:

42

On every 15th of the month, I erased it and lowered it by one.

Forty-two.
Forty-one.
Forty.

For three and a half years, that number sat there. No one ever asked what it meant. Not one person.

Either they didn’t notice… or they were silently rooting for it to hit zero.

I started that job on January 26, 1986. It was 19 degrees that morning. I know because my previous job was washing freshly painted utility trucks — outside — in January.

Whoever was lowest on the totem pole got that job.

I wasn’t just on the totem pole.

I was holding it up.

So when I walked into a heated building that morning, I felt like I’d been promoted to royalty.

I even took a two-dollar-an-hour pay cut to take the job. Two dollars an hour back then was real money. But I believed long-term it would pay off.

When I first started, I didn’t have any college education. Just a high school diploma and a willingness to work. But I kept getting passed over for promotions. One supervisor finally told me straight: “You’ll keep getting passed over unless you go back to school.”

That was hard to hear — but it was true.

An HVAC supervisor came to me and said that if I went back to school and learned the trade, he’d help me every step of the way. And he did.

So I worked full-time and went to school at night.

Those were long years.

I missed some things.

My son’s first baby steps were taken one night while I was sitting in a classroom trying to understand airflow calculations. I didn’t see them in person. I heard about them when I got home.

That part still stings a little.

You tell yourself you’re doing it for your family — and you are — but sometimes providing for them means missing moments you can’t ever get back.

I learned HVAC systems.

I just wish I’d learned how to be in two places at once.

For 32 years, I gave that place blood, sweat, and a few tears they probably didn’t log on the dry-erase board. I worked alongside some of the smartest people I’ve ever known. We solved problems together. Ate lunch together. Complained quietly together.

I went to their kids’ birthday parties. Camped with some of them. Attended funerals for their family members.

We weren’t just coworkers.

We were everyday life.

And then one day, I walked out.

Retirement is strange.

One day, you’re the guy everybody calls when something breaks.

The next day… nothing breaks that requires your number.

At first, I kept my phone close. Surely someone would need advice. Surely they’d call and say, “We can’t find this,” or “What did you do about that?”

Turns out, they figured it out.

Rude.

Before COVID, I’d stop in and have lunch with some of them. Now I mostly see them on Facebook. I still hear from a couple of guys, but it’s rare.

You work beside someone for 15 years and assume that bond is permanent. But when the daily routine disappears, you realize proximity and permanence aren’t the same thing.

I suppose I could call them. But they’re working. And when they’re home, they need family time.

And I’m retired.

Which means I now have plenty of time to think about things like dry-erase boards, 19-degree mornings, and baby steps I heard about instead of saw.

That number in the corner wasn’t just a countdown to retirement.

It was a countdown to a new season.

For 32 years, I was “the HVAC guy.” The steady one. The one who knew where everything was and how everything worked.

Now I’m the guy who drinks coffee in the morning without a time clock waiting on me.

And you know what?

That’s not a bad promotion.

I’m grateful.

Grateful for heated buildings on cold mornings.
Grateful for supervisors who pushed me.
Grateful I got to leave on my terms.

And grateful that even though I missed a few first steps…

I didn’t miss the rest of the journey.

When that number finally reached zero—

I erased it.

And walked out the door.

On my own two slightly creaky, but still standing, legs.