Roadmap for Withdrawl: How I retired with ambiguity

The path to retirement proceeds in stages. First the pros and cons. The supply of money and the cost of living now and in the future. Then the loss of interest in what I was doing. Would I spend the rest of my life rehearsing and replaying the past. Are all adventures of life over for me and is this "ground hog" day all over again. Then the doubts, the sleepless nights, the nightmares of not knowing where I am, feeling lost, going back in time to painful marriage and feeling helpless to external demands by others and circumstance. Finally the intellectual acceptance that all of the rationalizations do not obviate the fact that I don't need more money and the primary purpose of working is gone. Leave it to the children. No, I want it for Kerstin and me. Then I don't like many patients and oh I do like some. Then I think I am helping some people, especially children. Then I give up surgery because of tenosynovitis of thumbs and wrists. Then I realize I am not reading very much medicine and my skills must be diminishing. I give my notice. Then I decide I don't want any exposure to malpractice and possible litigation so I will pass off cases for biologics. I am passing off cases to PA's. I am supposed to be the authority and now I defer to them. Then I try to give advice on injection of fillers and I find they know as much and more than I do. Then they know more about dosing advanced meds.
I feel myself wither as if a vapor slowly dissipating. I don't want to go back. I wanted to leave on my terms at the top of my game. This is not the top. It is a slippery slope and I am sliding, cascading?, down. I have to get out while there is something left to me. This is the 3 body problem at the end of one of the intermediate games. I melt away. Hopefully to resurrect in another world, another time, ?another form.

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