Retirement: an unsettling experience

[UNDERHILL1927]

Well, after 48.5 years of solid work and 6 months from State Retirement Age I'm hanging up my pen and cursor this week. I feel far from 'shot/knackered/spent' and I've been looking forward to escape my partly-mundane, sedentary and often frustrating work and replacing it with a myriad of things I enjoy but which I have vowed to shut my trap about on here.
I went part-time four years ago and haven't been into the office since March 2020 so it's not the same as the sudden jolt of going from full-time to fully-retired overnight. Most of my peers have already retired (and stepped up their physical exercise with the extra hours of leisure and as I intend to) so the former 'craic' at work wouldn't be the same if I returned.
The next few months are chocker with trips planned around the UK (seeing friends, attending gigs and City games and engaging more in one of my pastimes) and next year, if it is safe to do so my net will be casting even further afield and for longer periods.
Retirement for me and for many others means getting involved in more activities (and pleasurable ones) than ever before. No inept management to answer to any more, no frustrating and laborious work processes to endure any longer and no confines of any description (although they were minimal compared to many people's work environments).
So what's the problem I hear you not asking.....
It just feels weird thinking that:
1. One's expertise at work won't ever exercised or sought after again
2. Not working seems like a guilty luxury to this person of working class stock when many people around the world are scratching about for a living
3. I don't feel old and decrepit enough to cease work. (A strange notion for some people but it was a concept that which was familiar to many of our parents)

I have already created a timetable for me to indulge in physical and intellectual tasks every day but am I going to end up typing on here every hour of the day dressed just in a string vest with fried egg stains on it and with my goolies hanging out?
Answers on a post card, please.......

Congratulations and good luck mate. Any large-scale change is daunting but you deserve a rest for all those years served.

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Congratulations and good luck mate. Any large-scale change is daunting but you deserve a rest for all those years served.

Far from needing a rest I will be putting my energy into activities that are the opposite to sedentary work! Retirement sounds like going out to grass but it's an opportunity to be far more active rather than less.