By far, looking back at my now approximate one year preparation for retirement (will it ever really happen?) the thing that stands out the most as far as taking up so much of my time are all the incredible vacations that I’ve taken in the last year. It’s not that I’ve forgotten about all of them at all, but they’ve taken on such an incredible part of my life these days, that they not “unusual” standouts in my life anymore. They’re actually more of the “norm” than not the norm. OMG! I just counted them all—12 vacations in the past year and at least half of them were a week to 10 days long!! I just came back from a 9 day trip to India and Sri Lanka and I’m about to go on a 12 day trip to Croatia. And besides these bookends, there were 2 10 day trips to Spain, a 9 day trip to Dubai and AbuDhabi, a week long trip to Argentina, a 9 day trip to Hawaii ( bicycling around the big Island of Hawaii with my brother) and then several 4 day excursions to Seattle, Las Vegas, Florida and San Diego (for an incredible half marathon).
So, I intersperse my vacations with a little bit of work (jokingly “every now and then”). I really had intentions to fully retire, but but every time I think of that, I keep getting “busy” at work. I don’t mean busy as when I was in the height of my career. Looking back on it, I can’t believe that for well over 35-40 years, I was at my desk at 6 AM and generally didn’t leave the office until 7 PM. Nowadays, though, it’s more like a few hours here, a few hours there, and sometimes I’ll work for even 5 hours at a stretch!
Everyone around me asks me how I fill my time—don’t I get bored with having nothing to do? I’ll be honest and frank—I’ve never been busier in my entire life! Of course, the vacations I mentioned take up most of my time, but what else? Well, it’s now 5 AM and I’m here at my computer writing my daily blog post (one of my goals is to write one blog post per day forget next 60 days!!). It’s just that nowadays, I have “me” time and I now have time to do the things that really interest me, rather than what is necessary for career success. I don’t need the tons of podcasts and retirement books to warn me that you need to have hobbies and outside interests before actually retiring so that the transition to your “post career” life can remain rewarding, fulling and life affirming. (Of course, the real warning is that without hobbies and interests, life becomes extremely dull and meaningless and depression and long term disease can easily set in at this time).
So what DO I do? And why am I so busy? Well, first off, I’m designing my one-man cabaret show for the summer of 2024. This is no easy feat—it requires constant singing lessons, cabaret classes, rehearsals, and song selection and memorization. Then there’s the writing, revising, and refining the “script” (patter) for the anecdotes and storytelling between each song, a collaborative process between me, my cabaret producer, signing coach and pianist. Taken as a group, all of these activities alone take up at least a day and a half of my time per week. Oh—and how can I forget the tap dance lessons that are required for one of my songs—that’s just an hour and a half per week—and boy is it fun! Take a look:
So what else keeps me busy? Working out, or jogging, or going to my trainer is an every day event, and then there are piano lessons, courses in nutrition ( I have certificate of completion of an e-Cornell course in plant based nutrition and also completed an intensive 12 day course with the Dr. John McDougall group). Of course, writing this blog takes time (and writing comes relatively easy for me) but what really takes up all the time is learning how to actually put the blog on line, insert videos, ideas to create new content, etc. And this list wouldn’t be complete unless I mentioned the hours and hours of learning all about starting a podcast, getting familiar with all of the software (mainly GarageBand) and understanding how to upload my interviews to the Buzzsprout (my podcast hosting platform).
So for at least right now, I truly get to enjoy the best of multiple worlds. I’m happy with my multi-layered approach to life. Some work, but not a lot! To that I’ve added all of my interests, hobbies, and most importantly nurturing the excitement of where life will take me in the next few decades. At some point in time I will fully retire, but for now—hey—who can complain about 13 vacations in one year?
