David Gilmour, Pink Floyd member for those of you who may not know, just released a new album. Luck and Strange was released this week, the first album since Rattle That Lock in 2015. I haven’t had an opportunity to listen to the entire album, but I heard a pre-release of three songs on Apple Music and the songs sounded great. Interesting to see him feature his youngest daughter on vocals on one of the tracks.

The music sounds good, but what is really impressive is that Gilmour is seventy-eight yeas old. I saw him in one of the music videos for the album, and he looks damn good, impressive for seventy-eight. I hope I will be going strong when I reach his age. I also hope to be doing creative work at that stage of life.

If you are a Gilmour or Pink Floyd fan, give it a listen. His guitar and voice sound great. I’ll be checking ou the rest of the album this weekend.

Let me elaborate on the paragraph near the end of the previous post. I said my retirement life is great, but it has become routine and lacked spontaneity. I really looked forward to escaping my Ordinary World to the special world of Santa Fe. I needed a break from my routine.

I am not complaining about retirement. When I left Corporate America, I did not want to work in my industry again. I did not want to work in any industry again, certainly not in a job with the excessive structure I had lived with decades. I had other interests I wanted to pursue. I was very tired of the demanding structure I had been living in for more than forty years.

My career was somewhat demanding, but I’m not going to complain. There are a lot of people who have much harder jobs than I did. Still, I was busy. I worked from 7:30 AM to 6:00 PM. I was a single father to three growing daughters. I shared custody with their mother. They were with me several nights per week and every other weekend. When I came home I spent half my nights cooking, making lunches and going to school events. There was always a school reading challenge or oral language competition. sports events like volleyball or basketball. Weekends were often spent at a baseball diamond or in a gym watching my daughter compete in gymnastics. I was not a full-time dad. I had breaks. I do not how good a job I could have done without having breaks to recharge.

I got up at 5:00 AM to have time to myself before work to drink coffee, journal in a Moleskin and catch up with the news. A mad scramble began when the girls woke up; eat breakfast, pack lunches, get dressed, feed the dogs, and get my girls to school. I felt like the character in Jackson Browne’s The Pretender. Wake up in the morning, go to work, come home, lay my tired body down, get up and do it again. Life had been hectic for a long time.

It was hard work, but as the saying goes, but it was rewarding work.

***

I had a vision of living an unstructured life in retirement. I was tired of having my time dictated by others. Most of the weekdays were dictated by the requirements of my job and the needs of my children. Where I had to be, when I had to be there and what I needed to do. I wanted freedom. I wanted time.

I started investing with my very first paycheck to plan for the day when I no longer had to do the 8 to 5 thing. I dreamed about having unlimited freedom to do the things I had not had enough time to do. Hiking, skiing, wine tasting, reading books and listening to music. Painting, playing piano, exercising, drinking wine by the pool. Learning Spanish and traveling to Mexico and Spain to speak it. Writing the great American novel. I had a long list of things I wanted to spend time pursuing.

***

I was too naive to realize how big a change retirement is. I thought I would leave the building and the very next day be able to live a spontaneous, unstructured life. I thought I would reach my number, walk out of the building one evening and begin living a completely different lifestyle the next morning. This turned out to not be the case.

I want to say that retirement is as big a change as the transition from being a dependent child to becoming an adult, crossing from Act I to Act II. But that would be incorrect. The change to the retirement stage of life is much bigger. Think about this. When you retire you bring forty years of experience, forty years of behaviors, forty years of rules of how things work into the next stage of life, and many of those rules and behaviors are not what you need to have a successful retirement. Success in Act II looks different than Act III. The big experiences from Act II (e.g. I buying a house, marriage, divorce, progressing one’s career, acquiring stuff) are not the big experience of Act III. It is a whole new stage of life, and I think there are fewer guidebooks for how to live in Act III than in Act II. I was assimilated into Act II much faster than I was into retirement.

***

Life is funny. Human beings like structure. We are not meant to live unstructured lives. There are very few people who can actually be a bird flying on the thermals, taken whichever the wind blows.

I underestimated how the structures and habits that served me well during my career and raising my children would impact the next stage of life. I had trouble at first with the lack of structure. My body was still used to waking up at five, sitting at a desk all day, stopping work at five. I was used to taking weekends off and when I had free time doing chores and errands, etc., this had been a 38 year process of establishing and living that structured life.

I had a long list of things I planned to do when I retired. It took me awhile to realize that I was not “programmed” to do those things. None of the things on my list met my definition of productive when I worked.

For example, I became an avid reader after I graduated from college. I discovered Stephen King in my twenties and Hemingway and Fitzgerald in my thirties. Once I had children and my career demanded more of my time, most of my “reading” was an audiobook in the car or on walks, often non-fiction books related to business. I wanted to start reading fiction again when I retired. I made a goal to read at least fifty books a year. There are times I am sitting on the couch reading or painting and something begins nagging me to get up and get to work. to do something productive. The same thing happened when I tried to learn Spanish, listen to music, and learn to play piano. I still haven’t shaken the habit that I need to be productive. I have read more than fifty books per year since I left the day job, but most of them have been audiobooks.

***

It’s taken me almost seven years but I have created a new routine in Act III. I usually wake up much later than when I worked in corporate America. I spend part of the morning drinking Mexican coffee while reading Apple News, lingering on the couch slowly waking up over a period of a couple of hours. I am in no particular hurry. My day will include time spent meditating, practicing yoga for flexibility, and walking at least four miles in the farmland and almond groves near my house. I often listen to an audiobook while I walk or use my walks to think or dictate blog entries or ideas into Apple notes. At this point it’s approaching 2:00 P.M. I have probably done a couple of chores around the house and yard. I will likely go to the store to buy groceries. A couple of hours later it will be 5 o’clock and one corporate America habit I have yet to break is that I feel like I’m done with work. It’s time to relax. I often have happy hour calls with friends while I drink a glass of wine. My days can also include, though not routinely, breakfast or lunch with friends and occasional happy hour. Of course there are days when I’m going to leave my routine behind and go to places like Santa Fe or hiking in Anza Borrego.

That is the retirement routine I have created. My routine is filled with positive activities; exercise, meditation, yoga, story, painting and some writing. I have a daughter and grandson who live with me so I also spend time with them.

I’m happy with the new routine I have created. This routine is infinitely better than the one I had when I was in corporate America. But the intrinsic need for structure has resulted in having a somewhat rigid routine. What’s the definition of routine? A sequence of actions regularly practiced, a fixed program. Doing the same stuff every day. I practice of good sequence of actions, but once the actions became a routine it felt like I was subject to the tyranny of routine. A cry went out for something less structured with more freedom, more time spent on the things I was interested in but didn’t feel I had time to do. How ironic.

When I went to Santa Fe I had an epiphany. It wasn’t the first time I had this epiphany. I have it every time I am away for a few days. I am in a hotel far from home. I can’t do any chores. I don’t need to go to the store to buy groceries. I can’t help my daughter or grandson. I’m back to having 24/7, the freedom to do whatever I want. Without the distractions of chores the days in Santa Fe were spontaneous and carefree.

I’m not suggesting I want to live a spontaneous lifestyle without responsibility or routine. The epiphany? I need to bring more freedom and spontaneity into this lifestyle. I need to find a happy medium. It’s not a simple thing to do, at least it hasn’t been for me. I’m still fighting basic human tendencies and forty-year old structures. As Ray said to Lulu in Something Wild, “old habits are hard to break baby!” I have confidence that sooner or later I will reach that happy medium and Act III is going to be even better than it already is!

August 2007

Lifelong friends are hard to come by. I am blessed that I have a few, some dating back fifty years to high school. After graduating from college I have been fortunate to add two more close friends from the earliest days of my oil and gas career. 

One of these friends is Steve. We met thirty-six years ago after we left our first companies and found positions with a not-so-great company during a severe industry downturn. We developed a good friendship during difficult circumstances. A strong pull from his family caused him leave Bakersfield and move home to Tulsa, a process he named, “The Wrath of Grapes.” We did not want time and distance to cause a good friendship to fade away, so we started taking annual trips in 2006.

I traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico for our second annual “Buddy Trip.” We were on the road a lot. We spent one day traveling to Taos to visit the famous pueblo and check out the Rio Grande River Gorge. We stopped at a small church in Chimayo, then drove to the Taos Pueblo. Unfortunately, the pueblo was closed to the public. We ate lunch outdoors, shaded by colorful umbrellas, and shopped in the Taos Trading Post.

We drove to the Rio Grande River Gorge. We had the bridge in view when we saw a powerful storm coming from the north. The skies turned black, rumbled and lightning split the sky. Hail started falling. The storm chased us away.

We improvised. Steve turned the car around and headed south on Highway 285 to Bandolier National Monument. We saw petroglyphs, cliff dwellings and other Native American structures, some dating back 11,000 years.

We ate great food at many restaurants on our Buddy Trip. Breakfast at Pascual’s Cafe’, Mexican food at Tomasitos. We walked around downtown Santa Fe, looking at Native American art in the many galleries and tourist trinkets in far too many gift shops. We toured the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi and saw the Miraculous Staircase at the Loretto Chapel. There are so many things to see and do and places to eat in Santa Fe. If you haven’t been, put it on your “Places to See” list.

One afternoon we wandered into the La Fonda Hotel, an old, upscale, elegant western hotel near the Santa Fe Plaza. A friend from work told me “you have to go to the La Fonda to have one of their margaritas.” We sat at the bar, ordered Cadillac margaritas and chips and salsa. I am not a margarita aficionado, but my friend was right. These were great margaritas. The atmosphere and the camaraderie may have influenced how I felt about the margs, but they were damn good. If you travel to Santa Fe I recommend you go to the La Fonda and have one, or as we did, two margs.

We left the bar and walked around the rustic hotel and came across Photogenesis, an art gallery. There are a lot of art galleries in Santa Fe. This one specialized in photography. A black-and-white image of a New Mexico landscape by Nicholas Trofimuk captivated me. A picture of him showed him standing in the desert with a large large box, a view camera. I wasn’t aware there was such a camera. The camera had an 8″x10″ negative which produced amazing detail in his work. That was the first time I appreciated black-and-white photography. I am surprised I had never discovered Ansel Adams’ photography; I did after Trofimuk sparked an interest in photography as art

***

We took a scenic route when it was time to go to Albuquerque for our return flights. Rather than take the I-25 we drove seventy miles along Highway 14, The Turquoise Trail, a scenic bypass through rural New Mexico. We left early and maintained a slow, unhurried pace. We had a very spontaneous day. It was the most carefree day I had had in quite some time.

We stopped in Los Cerrillos, a tiny town with dirt streets. There are a few people living there and the St. Joseph Church holds mass every Sunday, but the town is officially a ghost town. I took pictures of Mary’s Bar (a western-style bar with an ironic sign that said, No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service). We drove around and I captured pictures of the Clear Light Opera House, a few doors painted blue and some quirky oddities. I also took several pictures of St. Joseph’s Church. We got a big laugh of a dog sleeping in the middle of Main Street. It was a fun stop off the beaten path.

***

We continued along the two-lane road. We crested a hill south of Los Cerrillos and saw the highway descending into the desert, snaking its way through pinion pines and shrubs to a distant mountain range. Large white clouds filled the sky and blanketed the mountains. I thought of Trofimuk and told Steve to stop the car. He watched for traffic as I snapped a few pictures of the scene with my Panasonic LX-2.

***

Our next stop was Madrid, a small artsy community about one hour north of the Albuquerque airport. I was aware of Madrid from John Travolta‘s most recent movie, Wild Hogs, that I watched in early 2007. The movie is about four disillusioned, middle-aged men from Ohio who escaped their routine lives by riding in their club, Wild Hogs. They took a road trip to California, but run out of gas in Madrid where they have an encounter with a local outlaw motorcycle gang. Several scenes were filmed at Maggie’s Diner, a setting for a romance between one of the Hogs and Maggie, the owner, and conflict with the Del Fuegos.

Steve and I were not Wild Hogs, but we shared some commonalities. I would not say we were disillusioned with life, but we were middle-aged men who took annual trips to escape the routine of our ordinary world. We had conversations about the pitfalls of working in a volatile commodity business with many deep ebb and flow cycles. We talked about the joy and the grind of the routine, working 8 to 5, raising our children, marriage and divorce, and the responsibilities that come with having a career while being a father, son, attending school and sports events and maintaining a house. I empathized with the Hogs.

We planned to have lunch at Maggie’s Diner. We found the small building, with large glass windows, its name in a pretty cool font, and posters paying tribute to the movie. We pulled into the parking lot. Steve turned the knob but the front door was locked. We looked inside and it was empty. We got a big laugh as we realized that Maggie‘s Diner was a façade, a movie set and we weren’t going to be eating lunch there.

We were hungry. We drove to the south edge of town, and found a rustic western-style restaurant named The Mine Shaft Tavern. Big “hogs” filled the parking lot. I assumed they were on a road trip somehow related to the movie. I saw the motorcycle riders inside and they looked more like the Wild Hogs than the Del Fuegos. I ordered a burger, fries and one of the local brews. I highly recommend The Mine Shaft Tavern if you are driving The Turquoise Trail.

The drive was a spontaneous, unhurried drive, a fitting end to a great trip. We drove to Albuquerque and Steve flew east and I flew west to our homes.

***

I converted the picture to black-and-white when I got home. I used Silver Efex Pro to create a contrasty monochrome image. The picture wasn’t as sharp as one of Trofimuk’s. The little sensor in the Panasonic could not come close to the view camera, but the result pleased me. I was fifty years old, and for the first time I felt I could create appealing images that might be artistic. The picture was a turning point for me. Seventeen Miles to Madrid ignited my passion for photography. For the next few years I converted many landscapes and portraits to black-and-white.

The picture is a symbol of our trips. I sent Steve a large print, which to this day hangs in his writing studio (did I mention that he is a published author?). I can see it behind him when we have happy hour calls over FaceTime.

I have tried other forms of visual art through the years. Encaustic photography. Acrylics. Digital painting. When I experiment with a new visual process I return to Seventeen Miles to Madrid to re-create it in a new media. 

October 2023

Fast forward sixteen years to our most recent “Buddy Trip.” We have taken seventeen trips to cities in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California and Illinois.  We have eaten at many restaurants, tasted wine in Napa Valley, and stayed at four-star resorts and places that were far from four star. We hiked national parks, played golf on beautiful desert courses, explored caves, viewed art, looked at the Milky Way, stacked rocks in Sedona and explored Native American ruins. We rode a train to 14,000 feet and looked out from Pike’s Peak and walked on canyon rims and looked down thousands of feet to the canyon floor. We have spent time in bars, restaurants and on city streets watching eclectic people.

We maintained the annual streak for a long time, some years taking two trips. There were some challenges to our escapes along the way: careers, children, divorce,  marriage, pets, homes and yards to maintain, finances. We managed to maintain the streak until 2020. It took a pandemic to break the streak. The trips resumed in October 2022 when we received the “all clear.” 

***

We returned to Santa Fe for the third time in Fall 2023.. We did not have an itinerary for the trip. The only planned activity was a return to the La Fonda for the margaritas, as we had in 2007 and 2019. I was happy they were as good as I remembered. I was also happy to discover the La Fonda makes a pretty good buffalo burger and fries.

I wanted to drive Highway 14. I have looked at our picture many times over the years and recalled the day we took it. I wanted that experience again. I had used Google’s street view to follow the highway to find where we had taken the picture. I had looked along the highway north of Madrid but had been unable to find the location. I wanted to stand on Highway 14 where I took that iconic image (at least it is iconic for Steve and I).

We planned the first day over breakfast and decided to drive along Highway 14. The drive was slow and spontaneous, even more than it had been sixteen years earlier since we did not have to catch a flight home.

My memory of 2007 is that we left Santa Fe and drove south on Highway 14. We stopped in Los Cerrillos. We took a few pictures, continued south and found the location where we took a picture. We named it Seventeen Miles to Madrid, which implied it was south of Los Cerillos and seventeen miles north of Madrid. We drove to Madrid, had lunch, then drove to Albuquerque to catch our flights.

It’s funny how memory works, or in this case, doesn’t work. 

I knew something was amiss when we passed I-25 and started driving south on Highway 14. A mileage marker showed Madrid was only twelve miles away. 

“How can that be possible?” I thought.

Shortly after we got on Highway 14 we reached Los Cerrillos. We drove around town, but it didn’t take long. It is a very small town. We continued south and the markers said Madrid was only five miles away. I assumed we would see the location where we captured Seventeen Miles to Madrid somewhere in the next five miles. There were no mountain ranges that resembled the mountains in the 2007 picture. We did not find the location between Los Cerrillos and Madrid.

Madrid was how I remembered: artsy and small with many tourists. We passed Maggie’s Diner and noticed someone had opened a store inside. Wild Hogs had been good for Madrid.

We passed through town. I was very confused where we had taken the picture. We kept driving and made it almost all the way to Albuquerque. We did not find Seventeen Miles to Madrid. The picture is imprinted in my mind. On demand I can see the highway snaking through the mountains and desert landscape, the clouds in the blue sky. I thought it would be easy to find the spot. Nothing I saw that morning came close to the image. I was pretty disappointed as we began our drive back.

We planned to stop at The Mine Shaft Tavern again to eat lunch. As we drove north, Steve said “hey, don’t those peaks look like the mountains in the picture?” We stopped at a turnout and studied them. The outlines were very similar, but the view was flipped. We were coming from the opposite direction of the picture. We were driving north and the picture had been taken while we were driving south. We drove slow, watching the road as we wound our way around the mountains from the south to the north side of the range.

We found it. At least it seemed we had. Things had changed, of course. Sixteen years had passed. A large electrical transmission line crossed Highway 14 near where we had to have taken the picture. We didn’t think it was there before. It looked like several trees and bushes were removed during construction. A new structure with fencing was on the east side of the scene. But there was no denying these were the mountains and this was were Highway 14 descended and curved to the left.

For sixteen years I believed the title was literal, that we had been seventeen miles north of Madrid when we took the picture. Steve had a different memory. He keeps journals of our trips and looked back to the day we took the picture. The title was arbitrary, likely based on his journal entry from that evening. Seventeen Miles to Madrid was a “a “throwaway phrase” that captured the feeling of the image.

We stopped a couple times and I couldn’t quite find the exact location. The mountains were distant in the original picture. They appeared much closer now. I tried different focal lengths and camera angles. I bent down close to the road, took pictures on the left, middle and right side of the road. We moved north and south along the highway. I couldn’t re-create Seventeen Miles to Madrid.  

We went back to 2007. Our engineering minds kicked in. We looked at the image metadata, the sequence the pictures were taken and the times they were captured. The metadata told us we stopped at Los Cerillos first, then Madrid, at a tank painted with colorful graffiti, and then the place we took the picture. We discovered we had taken Seventeen Miles to Madrid after we stopped in Madrid for lunch! The graffiti picture had been taken at 12:51 PM. The seventeen miles picture was taken at 12:59 PM, a delta of eight minutes. Allowing for parking, walking, traffic and setup, Steve estimated we drove six minutes south of the tank before we took the picture.

We were hungry. We decided to go back to Madrid for lunch.

We ate at the Mine Shaft Tavern again and I recommend that if you drive The Turquoise Trail that you stop in and eat. I ordered a buffalo burger with regular fries and an iced tea. Lunch was amazing, right up there with the LaFonda margaritas. If I had to choose between a Mine Shaft burger or La Fonda margarita I might have to flip a coin.

We drove to the tank and took another picture. The graffiti had changed, but it was as colorful as it had been in 2007. We drove south for six minutes, descended a hill and arrived at about the same spot where we had stopped an hour earlier. We parked and walked down the hill, taking pictures every few yards. The highway, mountains, the desert landscape with pinion pines and shrubs were the same. But we would not have stopped in 2007 for this picture. The sky was deep blue and clear on October 16, 2023. It was clear, clean, beautiful. The image felt incomplete. The thing that caught my eyes in 2007 was the clouds. The clouds made the image.

I was a little disappointed the 2023 version of the scene did not come close to the iconic picture we captured in 2007. I should not be surprised; magic is difficult to reproduce. At least we found the place we had taken it. I had snapped Seventeen Miles to Madrid ten miles south of Madrid.

***

Steve and I won’t be going back to Santa Fe. Three times seems to be enough, though I love Santa Fe and could find more things to do. There are other places to explore, even places we have already been where I would like to refresh other fond memories.

The day was interesting and exciting to us. It felt great to be spontaneous, to not have pressure to be somewhere or have responsibilities to do something. We had freedom and time to travel north and south along Highway 14 to find the exact spot where we had stopped sixteen years earlier. It was fun using metadata to piece together the actual sequence after our memories turned out to be different from reality.

It was a great day.

***

The Hero leaves his Ordinary World, receives a Call to Adventure, crosses a threshold into a special world and has adventures. Some of these adventures may lead him or her to a supreme ordeal. Having conquered the ordeal, the hero travels the road back to the Ordinary World. There are more trials and adversity on the return home, but the hero brings back rewards that change his world forever.

The Hogs left their Ordinary World in Ohio on a motorcycle trip to escape their routine lives. They traveled to California, entered the special world of the road trip. Along the way they encountered conflict with an outlaw motorcycle gang in a small town in New Mexico. One hog met a woman in the small town. They conquered the motorcycle gang, became hero’s, traveled to California and returned as heros to their Ordinary World in Ohio, their lives forever changed by the adventure.

Similarly, in 2007 Steve and I left our Ordinary Worlds in Tulsa and Bakersfield, traveled to the special world of northern New Mexico and escaped our routine lives. We had many adventures and experiences. We did not encounter any supreme ordeals. But I did bring back a reward that changed my Ordinary World. I returned with a picture of Highway 14 snaking its way through the New Mexico landscape with large clouds above. I converted it to black-and-white and it changed my world. I became passionate about going outside, capturing landscapes and converting them to black-and-white. I had a desire to make art, maybe even to become an artist.

We left our Ordinary Worlds again in 2023 to return to northern New Mexico. Our Ordinary Worlds are different now. We are both retired. We have a lot of freedom. We have time. We have new routines that are very different from the routines we had in the 40 years he and I worked in Corporate America. Our retirement routines are great, but they have become “routine.” Traveling to Santa Fe was once again an escape from the ordinary into a special place.

This time I brought back some different images, at least one that I will paint. I captured an image of Highway 14 near the graffitied tank, winding its way through the mountains. It is pretty but not spectacular. I replaced the sky with a big, blue sky filled with clouds that I had taken on a trip to Arizona. The magic reappeared,

But the real reward is not the image I brought back this time. Though my retirement lifestyle is great, it has become routine. The lifestyle I have created is a whole lot more pleasant than going to the office from 8 to 5, sitting in a cube staring at a screen or going to an endless number of meetings. I have created a new structure, a new routine, one that is not as spontaneous as I would like. 

Being in Santa Fe felt so different from being at home. I had complete freedom to be spontaneous. I had nothing I had to take care. There are times when I am home that I feel like I have to stop doing “unproductive” things, like reading and writing, to do something productive. Traveling along Highway 14 felt spontaneous and free, completely in the moment. That is what I brought from this trip – I need to create more spontaneity in this third act of mine.

November 16, 2016

“This it?” he asked.

“Yes, everything is cleared out. Here are the keys to my desk and drawers,” I said. “See you at breakfast.” An hour later my supervisor turned his keys into his supervisor.

I handed my final papers and security badge to Human Resources on the way out, said goodbye to a couple of friends, then walked out of the building into a crisp, cool fall afternoon. It was Thursday, a week before Thanksgiving. I had been looking forward to this moment for more than thirty-eight years.

You know how reporters ask athletes how it felt to win the Masters or throw the touchdown pass that won the Super Bowl, and the response is, “I don’t know, it hasn’t sunk in yet. It seems so unreal!” Walking out of that building was my Green Jacket moment, my three-point basket at the buzzer to win the tournament. It felt unreal.. It felt that way throughout the holidays.

I drove out of the parking lot as I had thousands of times. I didn’t feel retired. I exhaled a big sigh of relief as the building disappeared in the rear view mirror. No staff or safety meetings. No meetings! No corporate cliches, office politics or management BS.

“It’s the holidays,” I thought.

The holiday season is one of my favorite times of the year. I typically took long Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. With three-day weekends, paid holidays and vacation time, I was usually off for ten days around Thanksgiving and a couple of weeks during Christmas. As I drove away I felt like I was leaving for the holiday season. The first weeks felt like I was on a long vacation.

Retirement sunk in six weeks later when I did not go back to work after the Christmas holidays. That was the first time I realized I was no longer in my ordinary world, that I had crossed over into something new. It was exciting and strange.

December 17, 2016

I took my first retirement trip the week before Christmas. I booked flights and a hotel for my girls and I to spend four days in Park City, Utah. Unfortunately, I screwed up and booked the trip during my youngest daughter’s finals week. She was such a diligent student she chose to stay home to study and take finals rather than make alternative arrangements with her teachers. I guess that is why she graduated first in class, and I graduated far from first in class; I would have gone skiing.

***

We flew to Salt Lake CIty and took an Uber for the forty-five minute drive to Marriott’s Summit Watch property, one block from Main Street in Old Town. The weather was unseasonably cold, subzero at night single-digit during the day, but we filled our four short days with a lot of time outdoors and in the shops and restaurants along Main Street. We went ice skating at Resort Center Ice Skating and snow tubing at Old Gorgoza Park. We tasted Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegars at Mountain Town Olive Oil, drank hot chocolate at Java Cow Cafe’, browsed Dolly’s Bookstore and looked at local art at Meyer Gallery. We took a lot of family pictures along Main Street next to a large bronze bear and the tall evergreens decorated as Christmas trees.

The Summit Watch is not a ski in/ski out resort, but the base of the Park City mountain and the Town Lift are close. The Town Lift will take you to the gondola/lift at the bottom of the mountain. It is a short walk from the hotel; we ate breakfast a couple of times at The Bridge Cafe and Grill, a Brazilian restaurant near the lift.

The girls skied the last day. Though Town Lift was a short walk, we chose Deer Valley because snowboarders are not allowed. Not that we don’t like snowboarders, but my daughters were beginners and I felt it would be easier to learn without worrying snowboarders. We caught a free shuttle near the hotel and were at Deer Valley in minutes. The facilities were excellent (though $$$$) and the snow was perfect.

Unfortunately I had a ski injury from a bad fall at Mammoth Mountain years before and could not ski with them. I took them to the bunny hill and gave them some “lessons,” then watched them from an outdoor deck at Snow Park Lodge at the base of the mountain. The Burns lift was easy for them to get on and off and Wide West was easy green terrain for them to learn on. It killed me to watch them ski and not be on the slopes with them, even though the sun and the local draft beer were great.

They had a great time and are addicted to the sport. I had a knee replaced during CoVid and I am happy to report that were able to ski together when the CoVid travel restrictions were eased.

***

I highly recommend Park City. We went back in December 2018, this time with all three girls. I like skiing in Colorado and California, but it is so easy to fly into Salt Lake, drive forty-five minutes to Park City than it is to go to Denver and drive to the resorts along I-70. The Summit Watch is near good restaurants and a variety of shops. There is a variety of winter activities and I have read several travel articles that say the summer is great too. If the area wasn’t so expensive I could live there.

***

January 2, 2017

Christmas was great. Family. Good food. Breakfast and lunches with friends. I usually end the holidays by taking the tree down before New Years Day, light the outdoor lights one last time on New Years Day and then pack them away until Thanksgiving. I start my new year sitting on the couch with a Bloody Mary (virgin these days) in front of the TV watching college bowl games. Wisconsin played Western Michigan in the Cotton Bowl, the Rose Bowl featured a PAC-12/Big Ten matchup between USC and Penn State and Oklahoma played Auburn in the Sugar Bowl. I had no interest in any of those teams so the games were background noise as I focused on my other New Year tradition – making my resolutions.

My New Year’s resolutions are things I wanted to accomplish that year to move me towards my long-term goals. For the last several years my resolutions were familiar: career, my children, health (always need to lose weight), the house,, write a novel, and occasionally something about a German sports car that I told you I have a weakness for. These goals had been fairly stable and predictable for years.

I had my first “aha” while I worked on my resolutions. The first resolution was to become more active and lose weight, which was a lot more likely since I didn’t have to spend five days a week hunched over a desk. My second resolution was usually to finish one of the novels that were stored on the hard drive. I always made this a resolution but I didn’t actually think I would write one while I had a full-time job and three girls at home. This year I didn’t have a job and my girls were grown and didn’t need a lot of my time. This year I didn’t have an excuse not to write the novel. I had home improvements I wanted to make and some maintenance that had been neglected. But I no longer had career goals! I had no goals about investing and saving to reach my number; my number was in the bank. I had no goals and resolutions about retiring; I was retired. That felt strange.

“These are not my normal resolutions,” I thought, “because most of the goals I have had since I started my career have been achieved!”

That’s when I realized I wasn’t in Kansas anymore (figuratively). I had wanted to retire for so long and I was focused on achieving a certain amount of savings to get there. But it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that this is a huge change, the biggest change since I went to work after college and started my adult life. No more working for a paycheck. My children are mostly independent and don’t need my time as much as they used to. I had most of the things I wanted. I had complete freedom to decided how I to spend my day. The last time I had that much freedom were the first two summers of high school when I spent the day at the golf course to improve my game to earn a scholarship to play college golf. That was forty-seven years ago!

January 3, 2017

The holidays were over. My youngest was back at high school. My middle daughter went back to college and my oldest was working. I had the house to myself and it was quiet. I woke up early, made coffee and read the news on my laptop. I didn’t have to stop at 7:00 as I usually did to shower and go to work; I sat on the couch as long as I wanted. I started a new exercise routine. I walked four miles in the farmland to the northwest of my house, attempted to meditate and practiced some yoga poses. I did some work on the house, made a list of the improvements I wanted to start soon. I worked on a couple of photography projects I started before I retired. I accomplished a lot and by 2:00 I had my To Do list done. That is when I realized how much time 24/7 was, and I would have 24/7 to myself for the rest of the week, month and year. My friends at work were correct. Twenty-four hours, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year is a lot time.

I felt confident when I accepted the retirement package that I could fill 24/7 with meaningful things. That was before I realized that my main goals had been achieved. If I was going to fill time with meaning and purpose I was going to need a new set of goals. That proved to be more challenging that I thought it would be.

“You can’t leave, you make too much money to walk away. You don’t even have to work that hard,” Bill said.

I was telling Bill I planned to take the package. He did not understand why I would even consider it. He was telling me why I shouldn’t take it.

“How much money do you really need, Bill? If you think we can’t walk away from these paychecks then you can never leave. You’ll be here until they kick you out. There will always be more money to make,” I said.

“I have no intention of leaving,” he said. “I turned my package in already. I checked No. I plan to stay as long as I can. I love what I do.”

That’s what a lot of the gray hairs said when they told you they were staying. “I love what I do” even though they had been doing the same damn thing for years and had complained about how boring their job was the week before.

“I have other things I’d like to do. I want time, not more money,” I said, though there was a nagging feeling that I hadn’t reached my number yet and that might be a problem.

“Time? You have three-day weekends twice a month, ten holidays and four weeks of vacation. What more do you want? You have plenty of time.”

“No I don’t. By the end of the weekend I still have a long list of things I want to do.”

“By the end of my three-day weekends I am so damn bored I am ready to come back to work,” he said.

***

I didn’t have Bill’s problem. I didn’t love my work enough to exclude other interests I had. I also didn’t get bored on weekends. I had an easy time filling my weekends. I didn’t look forward to going to back going back to work on Monday mornings. On Sunday night when I thought about the Monday morning staff meeting my back started tensing up.

Bill wasn’t the only person who told me they were bored by the end of the weekend. Several of my friends said the same thing. Others said that if they were off full-time they would probably eat or drink themselves to death; I don’t think they were kidding. A few of my male and female friends told me they might end up divorced if they spent that much time with their spouse. Those friends had a problem with time; they didn’t want more of it, at least not at home.

My problem was time. I didn’t have enough. I didn’t feel like I had enough time to do the things I wanted to do for my daughters, the house and yard, the finances and to explore the interests I had. I was saving and investing as much as possible to reach my number to buy more time.

As the last day of work neared several people that had chosen to stay asked me how I was going to fill “all that time.” I gave them my list of things I planned to do, the same one I wrote about in the first post. When I left work, I didn’t think I would have a problem filling time. Even though a lot of my peers seemed very concerned about it I never considered there was such a problem as having too much time.

I was sure I could fill the time, not just fill it, but fill it with activities that had purpose and meaning. I was also confident if I couldn’t fill time I was curious enough, had interest in so many things, that I would develop new interests and activities.

***

I had a long list of things I planned to do as soon as I no longer had to spend my days sitting in a cube staring at a computer screen, or spending hours meeting in windowless conference rooms attending weekly staff meetings, monthly safety meetings, quarterly business reviews and leadership meetings. I had been developing the list long before retirement packages were rumored.

I planned to be healthier. Sitting on my butt all day had added more than a few pounds to my frame and the weight and the stress of the corporate environment had raised my blood pressure. I had a goal to reduce my blood pressure to normal levels without medication. I planned to exercise longer and more frequently, eat healthier and drink more water. A friend suggested I take yoga to stretch and develop balance. I read a great article in Men’s Journal about the benefits ten minutes of meditation per day provided and I was going to try it, even though it felt a little new aged.

I wanted to reboot some activities I used to have a lot of passion for, but years of numerous demands had taken their toll on how much time I had for them. Reading fiction and non-fiction, hiking, going to the beach, visiting Paso Robles wineries, visiting my long-time friends in Seal Beach and San Diego, listening to progressive rock groups like Genesis, Yes and Supertramp and Neo-prog like Porcupine Tree, Marillion and Steven Wilson.. I planned for routine breakfasts, lunches and happy hours with retired friends and other former co-workers. I would also spend time with my three daughters, especially since they would be leaving home in the near future.

There were a couple of new activities I had wanted to do but never found time. I was finally going to learn to play a musical instrument, ether the piano or electric guitar. Most importantly, I was going to answer a long-time call to write. I had a trilogy of novels in various stages of completion. After numerous starts and stops I was determined to finish at least one. I was also going to write a blog. Of course, I planned to do some of the retirement standards: travel, play a little golf and spend time with the grandchildren (whenever they came along). 

I thought there was little chance I would not be able to fill time with meaningful activities. If anything, I had too many things I wanted to do. The chance of becoming bored and going back to work, as many of my peers suggested, seemed minimal.

***

I didn’t get a scholarship or play golf in college, but I spent five years in school. I went to classes Monday through Friday, studied at night and on weekends and spent summers working and going to summer school. After graduating, my week days were largely dictated by the company I worked for. Except for vacations, holidays and weekends, my time from the age of twenty-two until almost sixty was spent in an office behind a desk looking at a screen or in a conference rooms from 7:30 to 5:30.

I didn’t enjoy the bureaucracy and structure of Corporate America, so I made a couple of attempts to escape the oil industry. I started an MBA program at thirty while I worked full-time. I spent two years taking the undergrad prerequisites and another two years taking the MBA classes. My nights and weekends were largely spent going to class and studying. The next two years I spent my nights and weekends learning how to program an interactive software tool called Toolbook to create a stock investment program I outlined and brainstormed in my masters thesis. When neither Charles Schwab nor Standard & Poors decided not to use the software, I spent my free time creating an interactive story integrating text, music, audio, and video. The story got some attention; one multimedia publisher expressed interest and said the story could make me a New Age Guru, but his company went bankrupt.

I got married while in the MBA (can’t believe I had the time!). We had three daughters and divorced when they were young. I became a single Dad. Becoming a father brought a whole new set of responsibilities, more than I thought possible. Diapers, meals, making lunches, taking them to school. School awards programs, talent shows, band concerts, plays and dance recitals. Volleyball, basketball, softball. gymnastic events, cross country and track. I loved being a father.

***

For many years, my time was dictated by school, work and family. I got up and went to school, worked or studied, came home, got up and did it again. When I had children I would help get my daughters ready for school, go to work, come home, make dinner or go to some event, get them ready for bed, then get up and do it again.

This is not a complaint. This is how many of our lives are structured. Time is filled with school, career, family, the house and yes, some recreation and entertainment (it wasn’t all work and no play!). I might have made some different choices about the work I did but I wouldn’t make any changes about my life with my children, even though as my girls were growing and my career became more demanding some of my passions and interests were pushed by the wayside. I no longer had time to do things I loved and they were no longer part of my routine. Those activities and interests were relegated to my list of things I would do again, someday.

***

Why am I telling you all this? I dismissed the friends who asked how I was going to spend 24/7. I was certain that was not going to be a problem for me. I had been so busy since I graduated from college. I knew there wasn’t much freedom for how I would spend my days. The choices had been made, some by me, others for me. When I woke up I didn’t have to get up and figure out how I was going spend my day. I was so busy I did not realize how much time 24/7 was if it wasn’t occupied by school, work or family. I only knew I didn’t have enough time.

I started doing things on my list. I walked four miles in the farmland northwest of my house, meditated for thirty minutes and developed a yoga practice for flexibility and balance. I went to breakfast on Monday mornings (our retiree version of the Monday morning staff meeting) and to lunch one or two days a week. I used Duolingo to learn Spanish and started taking piano lessons. I filled my days sometimes, but I found it difficult to fill the time from when I woke up to when I went to bed with recreation and entertainment. There were days I would finish my routine, look at my watch and it would be 2 o’clock and I’d think, “wow I have done a lot already and I still have hours before I’ll be going to sleep. What’s next?”Those days were a little uncomfortable, but not enough to drive me back to the oil industry.

There was a second problem that made it difficult for me to fill time. It took me a long time to realize it, but I can see it in hindsight. If you have ever had to break a long-term habit, starting retirement was almost like going cold turkey; one moment you have a long-established pattern of behavior (get up early, go to work, come home, make dinner and help the kids with homework, go to bed) and the next moment you don’t.

I don’t want to make you think I am comparing retirement to breaking a bad habit, though in some habits I developed over forty years served well in the second act but did not serve me well in retirement. I’ll explain this more in the next post.

Figuring out how to use the freedom you finally have when you retire is a whole lot better than breaking a bad habit. Breaking a long pattern of behavior is hard to do. I didn’t understand that. Not only did I need my list of things to do in the retirement I wanted, I also needed to know what I had to undo.

I first encountered The Hero’s Journey in the early 1990s while taking a multimedia storytelling class at UCLA. People thought stories published on CD ROMs that integrated text, sound, video and audio would be a boom in storytelling. I did too. It didn’t, but I learned about Joseph Campbell through Christopher Vogler’s work in the class. The Hero’s Journey goes like this:

A Hero exists in her ORDINARY WORLD. She receives A CALL TO ADVENTURE, but the Hero is reluctant to change and REFUSES THE CALL. The call is tenacious; it does not go away. The Hero is encouraged by a MENTOR to answer the call. Finally, the Hero is either persuaded to stop refusing or she is forced to answer by circumstances beyond her control. The Hero departs her ordinary world, CROSSES THE FIRST THRESHOLD and enters a special place. Here she encounters TESTS, meets new ALLIES and makes ENEMIES. She APPROACHES THE INMOST CAVE, crosses another threshold and endures the SUPREME ORDEAL. She takes possession of her REWARD and is pursued on THE ROAD BACK to the Ordinary World. Reluctantly, the Hero must eventually go back to her ordinary world. She crosses a third threshold, experiences a RESURRECTION, and is transformed by the experience. She RETURNS WITH HER REWARD, a tangible thing or knowledge from the experience that benefits the Ordinary World. The reward changes her ordinary world, and in so doing, she changes the society she lives in.

This adventure is what this blog is about. My ordinary world was disrupted when oil prices collapsed in 2014. I was a single Dad with three children; one married, one in college and one a high school senior. I was in my thirty-sixth year of my career and I was not close enough to My Number. When oil prices collapse and the downturn persists, layoffs are on the horizon. Rumors were rampant that packages were coming, starting with enhanced voluntary packages. The rumors were true, the packages were inevitable, but the timing and the size of the packages were uncertain. I was retirement eligible and would likely receive an offer. There was no way the package was going to get me to my number, but voluntary packages can become involuntary, and my position supporting the line organization was likely to be eliminated.

My Call to Adventure was that I may be retiring sooner than I planned, whether I was at my number or not, whether I volunteered or not. I had been waiting to retire since the beginning of my career, but when the end seemed inevitable, I wasn’t sure I was ready to go. I refused the call at first. I had two college educations to pay for! A friend who worked for a different oil company reluctantly took a package a year earlier. Soon he was happy he took it and our conversations (my Mentor) convinced me to take it, figure things out afterwards and be happy I got an extra two to three years in the next act.

In late September 2016 I walked into my supervisor’s office and handed him my paperwork. Two months later I walked out of the building, leaving behind my 8 to 5, a big part of my ordinary world. I Crossed the First Threshold and entered a special world, one I had wanted a long time. It turns out I didn’t understand what this next act was like.

In these first two posts I have told you how I left Corporate America after thirty-eight years and that I have been in the next act for almost seven years. This blog is about my experiences since I crossed over into this special world.

***

It’s a wonderful stage of life (as long as you are financially secure and have your health, but it is so different from Act II. Most of us are finished working or go to work in a different line. You have raised your children. Making money and raising your children are no longer your primary goals. Your kids may have left home, or they are still home, but your responsibilities are less than they used to be. Family is still very important, but in this stage of life you have the most freedom you have ever had. You may still want to make money, but it may not be a primary driver for what you do. Buying new stuff probably won’t be either, but you may find that after years of sacrifice and saving to reach this stage you can afford a few of those things you didn’t buy.

For many of us, once we get out of the office or the grind of 8 to 5, our health is going to get better, lose some weight, reduce stress and anxiety, gain some muscle strength (unless you sit on your butt). From my experience, and many others. your wellness should improve.

One of the biggest changes is that you aren’t living for the future (other than to make sure you have one), you are living in the present.

***

This blog is about my experience, yours may be different, but there will be common aspects of most people’s lives in this next act. Two hundred people took early retirement packages when I did. There were many retirement-eligible people who didn’t take the package, and they have gradually retired over the last seven years. The last of my vintage will be leaving later this month when the next round of packages occurs. Most of my college and high school friends are also retired. I’ve talked to a lot of them about their experiences in retirement. I run into them at Home Depot or the grocery store, see them at the latest retirement party or talk to them on “Happy Hour” calls. Their responses range from “I hate it” to “Can’t believe I waited so long!” The transition is difficult for some. It has been simple for others, like my pilot friend who has been practicing for retirement for thirty years. Many have said it is harder to use the freedom they have than they thought it would be.

I am in the camp that wishes I hadn’t waited so long. It is a great time of life, but that doesn’t mean it has been as easy as I thought it would be. At times it has been more difficult filling 24/7 with meaningful things than I thought it would be. I will write about this a lot.

***

The next act has been a huge transition for me. It hasn’t been difficult, but it hasn’t been as simple as I thought. It is a journey to a new Ordinary World, and according to Vogler and Campbell once you cross into the next act there are several stages to be encountered before you create a new ordinary world.

• Encounter TESTS, met new ALLIES and make ENEMIES;

• APPROACH THE INMOST CAVE;

• Cross a second threshold and endure the SUPREME ORDEAL;

• Takes possession of a REWARD;

• Be pursued on THE ROAD BACK to the Ordinary World;

• Cross a third threshold, experience a RESURRECTION, and be transformed by the experience; and

• RETURN WITH A REWARD, a tangible thing or knowledge from the experience that benefits the Ordinary World. The reward changes the ordinary world, and in so doing, the hero changes society. (A note, the ordinary world you create may not be the one you thought you wanted when you left the workforce. You may stumble into something entirely different.).

I’ll write about my experience making this transition.

***

I will write about how I spend time. My “routine” includes reading, listening to music, meditating, practicing yoga, spending time with my girls and grandson, hiking, drinking wine, writing and digital painting. I will write about products or services that enable these activities. I am not trying to be an influencer for the post Corporate America crowd. I’ll share things like books, music, movies, streaming programs, software and hardware (since I am an Apple guy I will be talking about that platform, but I am sure Windows and Android have equivalents). I will not write about things I have no experience with.

I also spend time traveling. I will write about the hotels, locations and experiences from my travels and post pictures from my destinations in case you’re interested or you need inspiration to get out there.

***

I hope this gives you an idea of what my blog is about. I am sure it will evolve over time, but starting out this is what I plan to post about.

Let me start this blog by telling you a little bit about who I am and what I think this blog is about.

I am a father to three great daughters and a grandfather to my grandson. My first daughter lives on the coast, but my two youngest daughters and my grandson live with me in Central California. I am not an Empty Nester, yet. I may soon be. My youngest has finished her masters degree and is moving out of state to work on a PHD. My middle daughter is finishing her education to be an Ultrasound Technician and will start her career this fall. At some point in the future she and my grandson will move out to start her adult life. I am in no hurry to be an Empty Nester.

I like to read Stephen King and John Grisham and classics like Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Music has been important to me since I discovered rock in the late sixties and progressive rock in the early seventies. I listen to Zeppelin, Genesis, Yes, Steven Wilson and The Doobie Brothers and The Cure. I like drinking wine, especially big, bold reds from Justin and Daou in the Paso Robles area. I have a weakness for the design and feel of German sports cars. I discovered hiking when I moved to California and I routinely hike the southern Sierras, the national parks and deserts like Anza Borrego.

I started traveling as soon as I graduated from college and had a paycheck. I went to several places in Mexico, Hawaii and numerous ski resorts around the west. When my girls were old enough to travel we went to Disneyland, San Diego and Vegas (yes it is kid friendly). I made my first trip to Europe in 2003, to Italy, and later had the opportunity to go to England and Ireland for a training program. I took my oldest daughter to England on one of the trips, then to Ireland; she has the travel bug and has taken solo trips to Italy and Thailand. When my girls were older we went to Hawaii, Alaska and Park City. We have hiked, skied, snorkeled, zip-lined, tubed and had many other experiences on our trips. Travel is an important part of my family’s lifestyle, and I always have a good camera with me.

***

I grew up in Texas. I planned to live and retire there, but the oil industry had other plans for me. I moved to California for a three-year assignment in the 1980s. I have been here for almost forty years. Work and a paycheck brought me here. The Sierras, Pacific Ocean, deserts and the weather keep me here (though it is 109 degrees outside as I write this!). I am thankful the oil industry moved me to California and provided a good income to raise my girls.

My parents taught me the way to success was to get a degree in one of the “Big Three”professions from a good university, get a high-paying position with a big, stable company that offered great benefits and a retirement program; put in forty years; retire with a gold watch and pension; and then live the life I wanted to live. They were especially adamant about this plan when they didn’t have as much money as they needed to live the lifestyle they wanted.

That’s what I did. I did what my parents taught me, though I kicked and screamed as I entered college and continued to kick and scream throughout my long career.

I graduated with an engineering degree from a large southern university. I’m not sure how nineteen year old me decided to major in engineering. I didn’t like math or science, but that is a story for a novel I am working on. I went to work in the oil industry, the highest paying industry when I graduated. I didn’t quite make it forty years and I did not work for one company. But the companies I worked for paid well (to those who survived the numerous layoffs) and they provided good health care benefits and retirement programs.

***

I entered the workforce planning for the day I would retire, especially a few years into my career when I discovered the path I had taken wasn’t a good match for me. I contributed as much as the IRS or the company allowed to retirement plans and 401(k)s. I saved outside the tax-deferred accounts. I learned about the stock market and invested in aggressive companies for the long-term. I wanted to reach “My Number,” the amount of money I needed to save to get out of 8 to 5 as soon as possible to live the life I wanted. I spent much of my career looking towards the future, probably at the expense of not spending enough time in the present. I can’t tell you how much I looked forward to leaving Corporate America.

***

To be honest, even though I talked about retiring often, I don’t know if I would have ever reached “My Number.” Most experts recommend saving enough money to provide the same income you had while working to maintain your pre-retirement lifestyle. That was a big number. The longer I worked, the more my career progressed, the more money I earned, the more I needed to save to replace my paycheck. How ironic. The more money I made, the more raises and promotions I received, the more I needed to save and invest. Number creep. “My Number” kept getting bigger and further away over the years. There was another problem too. I was more addicted to the two paychecks I received monthly than I had ever been to any of things my friends and I swallowed when we were young. I wasn’t sure I could go cold turkey.

As my peers and I neared retirement we asked, “how long until you retire?” and the answer always seemed to be “two to three years.” One friend told me he was retiring in two to three years for almost a decade. That could have easily been my fate.

***

Fortunately, I worked in a commodity industry, and commodities go through boom and bust cycles. When oil prices rise, the industry could be a fun place to work. Companies spent a lot of money, hired a lot of new employees, and increased salaries and bonuses. However, when price fell, the bust periods were brutal. Price declines were usually faster and more dramatic than price increases, and the busts seemed to last much longer than the booms.

When the bottom fell out of the market the big oil company’s patterns of behavior were well known:

• cut activities, which caused the service companies to fire employees;

• cut discretionary costs further;

• offer enticing severance packages to retirement-eligible employees to get them to leave voluntarily;

• then layoff employees, with severance packages, to reach overhead reduction goals; and

• wait out the storm until oil prices rise, and if the bust lasts longer than expected, repeat the previous steps.

I went through three boom and bust cycles the first thirty years of my career. I did not meet the criteria for enhanced voluntary retirement when packages were offered, but I was offered voluntary packages. I accepted the first two, intending to leave the industry, only to be lured back by a paycheck. I rejected the third package without consequence. A fourth package was on the horizon.

The market collapsed again in 2014 and this time I was close to retirement. I had twenty years of service and I was more than fifty-five years old; I met the criteria to be retirement eligible and receive a voluntary package if the company offered one. I wasn’t at “My Number” and the package wasn’t going to get me to it, so I debated whether I would accept one. I estimated I had two to three years left until I could retire.

The company took two years to cut activities, reduce discretionary spending, evaluate the strategic direction forward (e.g. how many people they needed to run the business) and offer voluntary packages. The package was good, but not good enough to reach my number. I wanted to start living the life I wanted to live now, but I had a sophomore in college and my youngest was a high school senior heading to an expensive University of California school. I had two college educations to pay for. I didn’t enjoy the work, and the environment in the building would be depressing after layoffs and continuous cost cutting for the foreseeable future was not fun work.

Then better sense prevailed. I realized I did not want to finish my career in a down cycle, spending long days looking for ways to cut costs. I didn’t want to work in a place that many of my friends had left, by choice or forced to leave; the morale was always so low after layoffs. I knew if I turned the package down management could tell me I was retiring anyway with a smaller package.

My company paid me to retire. After a thirty-eight year career I left Corporate America almost seven years ago. I received an Apple Watch as a parting gift. If they had not paid me to leave I would’ve continued to work “a little while longer” to reach a number that kept getting bigger, like many of my work friends did.

Time to live life the way I really wanted to.

***

I didn’t plan to have a conventional retirement. I wasn’t going to ride off into the sunset to play golf five days a week or create a new job as a volunteer. I didn’t have grandchildren (at the time) so I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time with grandkids like many of my friends did. I still had two girls at home and I planned to spend time with them while they were still home. I planned to exercise a lot, to read at least fifty books a year, to listen to music regularly and to learn to speak Spanish. Travel was one of my top priorities. I had big plans for all the extra time I would have without my 8 to 5. I wanted to combine my love for photography with traveling. I planned to hike the local mountains, sit on beaches, go wine tasting in Paso Robles and set foot on at least five continents.

Retirement was more to me than leisure and recreation, though I planned for a lot of that too. I didn’t call it retirement. It was the next act, which included the next career. Retirement wasn’t about quitting work, it was about doing the work I wanted to do without having to earn money. For me that work was writing novels. I started and stopped writing several novels during my career, but I let other priorities and responsibilities stop me from completing them. I was going to complete at least one or more of my novels in the next act.

***

I love this stage of life. I wish I had been able to do it when I was thirty or forty rather than waiting until I was 59-11/12. At least I get to experience it. I have a lot of time and freedom to do what I want to do. I like not having to work for a paycheck. I spend more time in the present than looking to the future. I get to spend time with my girls and grandson. I traveling more than I did when I worked, but it is still never enough. I read and listen to music during the day rather sit in a conference room for an endless stream of meetings.

The next act has been great, but I don’t want to give you the impression that is has been a simple transition. There was no On/Off switch. The change from forty years of structured behavior to an almost completely unstructured life was huge. It took work to make that transition, at least for me, and six years later my next act is still a work in progress. Friends that didn’t take the package asked me what I was going to do when I retired. I told them my list of things I was going to do. I didn’t realize that I also needed to have a list of things I needed to undo.

***

I’ll end this post here. The AI* says I have exceeded the optimum number of words for this kind of post. I will follow this up soon with a second post to describe what I think this blog is about.

* Just kidding about the AI. I did ask Chat GPT about the length of blog posts, but I didn’t use it to write this post and don’t plan to use it to write them, though I am curious about the technology and will be exploring how to use it. For now, this blog was completely written by a human being.