Monday November 7, 2016

Today begins a new chapter in my life. I will post every week. I will actually make time to write every day but I don’t have the confidence to know yet how interesting my thoughts will be.  I’m pretty sure at least once each week I can come up with something great.  Here’s how this all began…

I’ve been retired for nearly 5 years now and am barely 60 years old. Ok, I just turned 64 but still I was 58 when I “accidentally” retired.  I had a great job that I loved, 22 years with the company, my kids were grown and in various stages of their successful adult lives, and my husband and I were having fun. I was suddenly RIF’d, aka laid off, set free, no longer had a job. Sure, I could have found another job at the company, but since I was eligible for retirement and had a great severance package, I waited. I needed time to think and to be honest, it pissed me off so much there was no way I wasn’t going to collect that severance. Eleven months’ worth to be exact.

Fast forward to the eleventh month and the decision was made to apply for retirement.  My husband, who is amazing, reminded me we would be financially fine. We had some rental properties, I had a nice 401k and a pension from said company. We would figure this out!

That was 2012, the year I turned 60.  As planned prior to my RIF, I was in the process of inviting friends to join us on a bike and barge trip to the Netherlands to celebrate that birthday.  We had a great trip and after I returned home, I began in earnest trying to figure out what the next phase of my life would entail. Four years later I’m still working on it.

Since the day I was “set free”, I have studied and received certifications for Life Coaching and Personal Training, blogged about coffee in Portland, studied Italian, studied Spanish, walked the Camino de Santiago (twice), driven across the USA and portions of the country, and in general can’t sit still. I continue to watch too much TV but I’m working on that.

Last week I met with our financial planner.  He is a great person as well as super smart. We were chatting about life in general and after reviewing my most recent trip to Portugal and Spain where I walked the Camino Portugese, he just looked at me and reminded me that I have an amazing retirement. “You should write a book!” That resonated with me and the following day I thought “why not!”

A couple days later I was listening to a podcast as I often do, and the two women on the show were talking about how their books happened – it was through blogging. They didn’t start out with the intention of writing a book, but as time went on, it was the natural progression. Blogging seems challenging enough but I have always loved writing in any form. When I travel, I journal. The last two trips I’ve taken I have blogged on Tumblr. I often use Facebook but don’t quite get how to properly #tweet, use Instagram and any other form of social media. I will thoroughly study my options.

I don’t look my age, I definitely don’t act it, and most people I know including those who are younger than I am, can’t keep up with me. I take pride in that fact. If I have one thing to change about myself it is the extra pounds I have on me. They have been there for 30 years so I know it’s going to take a while to remove them, but that is happening. Nutrition is my current passion and while I do waffle about what the best approach is, I’m somewhere between LCHF (low carb high fat) and Whole30. It’s somewhat Paleo and definitely not the standard American diet.  I love tapas and eggs. I’m learning how to be creative with vegetables and try to walk 15,000 steps every day.  I need to add strength training back into my daily routine and I’m working on that too.  Who says you are ever too old to make changes?  I wake up every morning ready to make it a great day. Here’s to Day 1!