Retirement. What's Next?? A White Blank Page

There I sat on Valentine's Day, February 2020—feeling alone, hopeless, with no map to follow. COVID opened the door to chaos across the world, and I was navigating a messy divorce after a 30 year marriage.? ?Saddened, grieving, and reflecting on my past, time knocked on the door of tomorrow.

Yet despite the despair, a glimmer of hope lay before me in the shimmering landscape of Lake Travis. A white blank page lay ahead, with creativity the ?kindling to the promise of a better tomorrow. It was on that cool day that I penned the first of many poems below that led to my healing and eventually a new song.

I share this story as it captures much of the emotion I felt as I was working through leaving my 30-year tech career for retirement. The feelings were less poignant but nonetheless scary. Will my friends, children, and family respect me? What will I do with the 10 hours I used to give my job daily? Will I be happier and how do I navigate the future??

Fast forward to the middle of 2023. ?A beautiful new wife and friend at my side, a white blank page lay before us, two creative minds with hopes and dreams with no real clue of how to navigate this next chapter.???? So with arms wide and my back bowed, staring at the edge of a cliff with endless adventures ahead, I made the decision to pursue a new chapter.

After binging every show you want, traveling internationally for 8 weeks, and spontaneously taking your boat on mountain lake adventures, you'll likely find yourself on a rainy day sitting on the couch wondering what to do next. ?My first step was pragmatic: I had to discover some new passions and develop positive hobbies to ensure boredom didn't get the best of me. Here are few I came up with to spur your own ideas.? I think it's important to name the passions and set some goals within the passion so you can evaluate whether you need new ones or are on track with the ones you've picked.?? My list is longer than below but here was my starting point

1.??????????? Develop a Pickleball Community: Pickleball came to me in the middle of the pandemic. As a freshly divorced guy, I quickly found that some of my old married friends didn't know what to do with me, and I needed some new running buddies. As I transitioned into retirement, I wanted to find a regular group of retired pickleball players who wanted to develop their skills to their maximum potential. My measurement is whether I can compete with 4.0 (skill rating) 30-year-olds and regularly break bread and beer with my new retired friends comparing our retirement journeys. I want to use pickleball to give back volunteering in a few kids camps a year.

2.??????????? Feed Myself Creatively: This passion has turned into several hobbies. I'm on my 30th love poem and 100th travel video documenting our adventures . I'm putting my poems in books and sharing my videos on TikTok, learning about online vloggers. I also wanted to push myself creatively and learn web design and SEO so I could help my son grow his small business. We now have his matchlight video productions websites ranked in the top 3 of Charleston and Charlotte video production companies. The next step is doing free web design for people that cross my path.

3.??????????? Feed my Desire for Adventure and Health: I have always found clarity in the mountains, rivers, and beaches. So why not learn to surf in Hawaii or embrace a new passion for hiking navigating each state of the Appalachian Trail? ??A spontaneous 7 day rafting trip with my brother down the middle fork salmon river.?? Why not find a buddy or two or three that want to do these trips together and learn to love and embrace new experiences? ?Maybe an RV adventure starting in the Grand Tetons, making your way to Glacier National Park, and finishing in Banff. After hitting 40 countries with my traveling sales career, why not linger in the streets of Bellagio, Lake Como, or Madeira, Spain?

Well enough for now. We all will eventually sit with a white blank page before us.?? Retirement is what you make it and its up to YOU to color the page up.?? Our mind brings the brushes for the palette and it is the people we meet along the way that create the most brilliant hues and shades.?? So, for my future retired friends, let's color it up and carpe Diem!! I'd love to hear your thoughts and/or similar experiences.

My First Poem penned back in 2020 entitled "White Canvass".

Colorless, mist, darkness gives way to morning. The fog billows over the hills like a blanket stretching across the shore. It dances with the wind, white and thick, obscuring everything in its path. The sky is hidden, and tree branches reach to the heavens in silence. The cold water pushes the fog upwards in a swirling, rhythmic motion. Dawn arrives, filling the mist with radiance—white plumes with bold edges. This winter morning, the world is colorless. Fog blankets the valley of Lake Travis. I listen to music, deep in meditation. With meditation comes promise: a better day, a sky filled with blue, a song from the trees, reeds swaying as water laps against the shore, a red swing blowing in the breeze, light shimmering from the lake. Dawn brings clarity as I sit—the fog begins to lift. Brilliant blue patches fill the colorless canvas. The outlines of the hills come into view. So I stand on the promise of color this Valentine's Day. He is the maker of reds, blues, greens, indigos, and violets. He is my maker, the painter. Bring color. Let us know the fog is temporary. Take my hand and show me the colors that are always there, even when my eyes can't see. Paint this next chapter... So I take a deep breath and know He is good and loves us like no other. What a beautiful Father.