I’ve been musing a lot lately on a lot of things. I spent a lot of time over the past month or so looking at the life I envisioned for myself and how it compares to the reality of now. Most of the battle within centered on the thought that we’d have a lot more money to live in two places, and to travel more (keep in mind that I love to travel, but only very, very comfortably). I think I spent a lot of time and mental energy and angst thinking about what I could have done, maybe should have done differently to actually end up with the outcome I envisioned.

A funny thing happened on the way to melancholy, I spent the two days referenced in the prior blog post (now, you have to read it if you’ve not so you get the gist of the motivation of this one) really wondering what the hell I was doing and what I had done. Those very brief two days (though at the time they seemed unending) became a mental and emotional cleansing of sorts. No, short of a powerball hit (and we all know what the odds of that are), nothing is going to suddenly change the reality of where we are in that regard, however, the cleansing was the bright, sunny, clear, revelation that the reality is pretty damn good and looking back my life has been pretty damn great.

I made a conscious choice in 1976, at the then tender age of 24, that I would walk away from a budding career path in the financial and business fields because I hated it. Other than the prospect of more and more and more money, there was nothing at all either interesting, motivating, enjoyable or uplifting about it. The sameness of it, in terms of the daily grind, the commute, the suits, the meetings, and so many other things simply had me sad. So having dipped my toe briefly into the teaching world, I decided to try it one more time. That turned out to be the best move ever. While it took me years to rise to the salary I walked away from (6 years to be exact, never mind what growth that walked away from salary would have reached in those 6 years alone), I absolutely loved what I was doing.

Was it hard, YES…teaching is a very difficult occupation. What you have to balance, improvise, prepare for, juggle, adjust to on a daily basis is impossible to convey to someone who has not tried it. You have been entrusted with the intellectual and emotion growth and “feeding” of the most valuable resource on the planet and while you’re doing it, you are being told by a million different voices that you are not doing it just right, that you need to follow someone else’s script, that you need to go back to basics, while simultaneously expanding your approach based on all the new data, and those data numbers rarely, if ever, take into account what is actually going on under the hood of the audience you are playing to each and every day. That, however, is what makes it interesting, it’s exactly that lack of sameness that keeps it interesting. I was also very fortunate that I taught alongside an incredible group of folks for almost 47 years, in a few different places. Exchanging thoughts, ideas, laughs (lots of laughs), conversations about everything on every level, deep friendships developed and remain to this day. When I finally did take a deep breath and realize it was time to change stories, I said, and I say it again here, I never really “worked” a day over those years. That’s how fortunate I was professionally.

Personally, life had its roller coaster moments (and it still does), however, I have managed to go from fortunate son to fortunate father and fortunate grandfather (yikes…). It is also as if I was tapped on the shoulder by an angel (house agnostic here so think about how much I believe what is to follow) and into my life was dropped the most incredible partner in life. Funny, caustic, brilliant, warm, empathetic. Someone who loves the ocean, music books, can carry a conversation on farts as easily as on all things life. Someone who took a leap of faith to allow me to fulfill a desire I had to escape the cold winters even though it meant leaving everything we had both known for our lives, and moving away from those aforementioned deep friendships and the family I mentioned above also. It was my dream, not hers, yet she hopped on the train to my land of hopes and dreams.

I also have gone through bits of heading toward melancholy about aging. Yet the same partner reminds me how fortunate I am to be able to keep aging…to be able to both look back but continue to look ahead, to enjoy the results of all the years, while still dreaming of more of what is to come.

All in all….my parents allowed me to find my way without any pressure, a way I don’t think I would ever change, it’s been a lovely cruise (and continues to be), truly a fortunate son am I..