Imagine you're an international award winner at the peak of your profession, enjoying an all-time year of success that draws universal acclaim.
Then you walk away from it all, pack up your overseas base where you have achieved your greatness and head home.
You'd have some idea of the potent mixed emotions for Australian cycling great Grace Brown.
In June, the 32-year-old stunned the sport when she announced this season would be her last.
But there had been clues - Brown was a latecomer to the sport and would regularly have mid-season breaks so she could return to Melbourne, her home base.
Brown talks often about the pull of family, friends and home.
What happened after her announcement made it all the more remarkable.
The following month, she won Australia's first gold medal at the Paris Olympics while taking out her speciality event, the road time trial.
"Grace inspired the nation," Cadel Evans said.
A few weeks later, Brown achieved a cherished dream when she won her first world title in the same discipline. She was also in the Australian team that took out the mixed relay at the worlds for the first time.
Brown even won her retirement race, last month's Chrono des Nations time trial.
Combine those triumphs with her win in April at the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic, and Brown's 2024 is right up there in Australian cycling history.
It comfortably compares with the very best years of Evans, Kathy Watt, Phil Anderson, Simon Gerrans and Anna Meares.
It also meant constant questions over the past five months about whether she would reconsider retirement - and only reaffirmed to Brown that she was making the right call.
But just like many other retirees, that doesn't mean it's straightforward.
"I'm still confident in my decision, that it's the right thing to do, but it doesn't make the process of it easy at all," Brown tells AAP.
"It's going to be emotional and hard. Hard things often bring good rewards.
"It's still a bit ... it's hard to comprehend a little bit, this year."
Given Brown also started this year below her best, winning another national time trial championship in January despite a niggling back injury, she will need some time to fully digest what happened in 2024.
"It's been a dream. You couldn't write a better script," Brown says.
"Coming to terms with that being reality is a little bit difficult, but super-proud. It's crazy to think how well it ended."
It also begs the question - what comes next?
Brown will stay in involved in the sport.
Already she is locked in to be an ambassador for the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, which takes in Geelong, Barwon Heads and Torquay.
"It's really special to be able to transition in this way, going from a competitor in past years to now becoming an ambassador for the People's Ride here," she said.
"It's a beautiful way to integrate back into the community. I grew up in Camperdown, not too far from Geelong.
"Coming back here and also being connected with Cadel, who is a champion of Australian cycling, is almost a perfect way to ... start the next chapter."
Before retirement, Brown also put her name up for a board role at The Cyclists' Alliance, a professional union founded seven years ago that has made massive progress for women in professional road cycling.
Her offer escalated quickly and Brown is now succeeding co-founder Iris Slappendel as the TCA's executive director.
"I've been looking for an opportunity to somehow stay connected in a meaningful way with the sport, that's not racing and not being a staff member on a team. That would require me to be in Europe as well," Brown said.
"I saw that and thought that's actually a really perfect thing for me, right now.
"(Then it became) 'We think you'd be perfect for the president's role ... that was that."
Brown is acutely aware of the importance of her new role and the massive challenges that still face women's road cycling.
The death of Swiss junior Muriel Furrer in a crash at this year's world road titles - and the stunning lack of any video footage, or witnesses - underlines the ongoing issue of rider safety.
"It (safety) has become a different beast in recent years and (we're) really trying to come up with some proper solutions, how we can improve that, give riders more power over what is appropriate," Brown said.
"That's always going to be a big focus."
