I’m getting a bunch of “Congrats on your work anniversary” messages on LinkedIn, and at first it puzzled me. “What work anniversary?”, he asks. Then I realized that September 2018 was when I left full-time employment and semi-retired. My LinkedIn profile shows a bunch of changes in Sept 2018, so voila. It’s been five years since I stopped working for anyone/anything full time. Much has happened.

• We had a pandemic.
• My father and stepmother died. (See pandemic.)
• I had my first and only major surgery, a knee replacement.
• I became a board member of 4Liberty Inc.
• We traveled to a LOT of places over those five years. Hawaii, multiple times. KY, many times. Alaska. Norway. Amsterdam. Brussels. Great Britain. Africa (specifically Zimbabwe, S Africa, and Botswana). Seattle and Victoria BC. Mexico, multiple times. Branson MS and Reno NV a few times. Nashville and Ashville. The Grand Canyon. Sicily. Malta. Napa Valley multiple times. Australia (K only). NOLA and Oakmont (multiple golf trips, just me). Borrego Springs, CA. Pagosa Springs, CO. Panama Canal (K only). With the pandemic in the middle, that’s a lot of travel.
• Grandson #2 (Jessamine) was born.
• We bought a second home in Louisville (see Grandsons above).
• We bought K a new Jeep and travel trailer. Her new hobby.
• I left the board of 211 San Diego (term limits) and joined the board of San Diego Health Connect.
• I had my first and only ER and hospital stays – kidney stones and subsequent infections. Definitely a low point of the last five years.

Looking back at all that, it’s been quite a ride since “retirement”. Very Dickensian, the best and worst of times. I’m not sure how I ever had time to work full time.

I can only hope that the next five years are as full. But we’ll skip the pandemic this time.