Social Security and making it worthwhile...

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

The following is not a ‘how to/when to’ on signing up for social security.  It’s just one semi-retirement guy’s experience.

Having gotten past the disclaimer…not that anyone in their right mind would ever follow my advice…here’s my story.

I started looking harder at my annual ‘Social Security Statement’ shortly after my divorce.  I really hadn’t considered that the payment I’d be entitled to would be anything more than a supplement to whatever money I had in a pension plan and my savings account.  It was actually much more than that.

I was born in 1955, which determines my social security benefits eligibility timeline, and that meant I could begin drawing benefits at age 62, though only 75% of the monthly amount I would receive if I worked the additional fifty months to age 66 and 2 months.  It was a nice number for doing the math.  I figured quickly that my monthly payment would increase by ½% for every month I continued to work past my first eligibility date and so I plugged along towards the full 100%, but with the full knowledge that I’d likely get out early.

When I did finally sign up, I had reached 64 and 8 months – 16 months and 8% shy of my potential, full payment.  I had decided it would be worth it to leave some money on the table so that I could avoid working two more winters and have more time for camping, backpacking, cycling and traveling.  I knew my recreational pursuits with physically taxing and thought that I needed to get started if I was going to travel all of North America’s rugged backcountry.

I considered that by taking payments early, I was collecting a sum of money for 18 months that I otherwise never would have received.  I also recognized that if I’d waited, that monthly amount would have been greater – for the rest of my life.  By my calculations, I would be 82 before the extra monthly payment I would have received by working to 66 and 2 months caught up to the money I was getting for retiring early.  After 82, I would be going in the hole each month.  

I asked myself two smaller questions and one big one.  First, would I live until age 82?  No Rolf men in my family on this side of the pond have ever made it past 80, so there’s that.  Second, would the difference I’d be receiving in that higher monthly amount – somewhere around $200 – be the difference between living on my own or on the public dole?  I didn’t think so.

And then the bigger question: what would I do with the gift of time I would be receiving by not having to go to work each day?  That, of course, is what really matters…to me, anyway.

I’m not traveling yet since I still have to report to work twice a week, but that time is coming.  I’ll be off to Washington D.C. this weekend to get some time with my son, Jack, and to visit an old friend and discuss volunteer opportunities and incorporating ‘Leave No Trace’ principles into sailing on the Chesapeake.  I’ll also be spending time with my sister, who will be going to the same event.

I’ve started having family dinners with my extended family, Miggie, John and Teri, and others and am always looking for a way to be with family and friends.  I’m reading, writing, and when I’m not sick, doing more outside activities. 

So for me retiring was so much more than a financial decision.  It’s really all about time, having as much quality as I can, and figuring out what ‘things’ I can do without so that I can make it work.  And yes, so far at least, I’m using the time in a way that doesn’t make me regret semi-retirement.

A new life...

Friday, January 17, 2020

Much of the reading I’ve been doing lately are biography/autobiography stories.  Not only do I find them fascinating, I couldn’t put down ‘Boys in the Boat’ for example, but I’m reading them as self-help.  I’m interested in styles; what people include in their writing that makes it fascinating for the reader.  I want to be that writer.  Nothing for me feels better than to have someone tell me they like what I’ve written.

I just finished a short story by Katie Arnold, a writer for ‘Outside’ magazine called ‘Running Home’.  The ‘running’ part of it listed my attention and as I discovered she is an ultra-distance runner, had enough to get started.  It was a compelling story about growing up moving between divorced parents and her struggle with losing her beloved father to cancer.  Early in her professional career, she leaves a job in New York City that offered financial stability and security to go to an internship position in Santa Fe, New Mexico earning all of $5 per hour and for only six months.  Something in her gut told her it was the thing to do, and through determination and hard work, makes it work out.  She comments at some point about how proud she was for making her own life.

It got me to thinking about my situation and how, for the first time in my life, I’d done the same thing.  Though rebellious as a child and always looking to go my own way, I was married by age 20 and nothing I did from that day forward was done without at least some consideration for, and input from, Holly.  When Holly and I parted ways several years ago, I continued to live in the house we’d raised our family in and tried as much as humanly possible to keep the old parts of my life intact.  That offered security and comfort.  I was adverse to, and afraid of, risk.  What if everything came crashing down and I wouldn’t be able to afford my home?  And yet I knew living in a house with six bedrooms and 3,500 square feet of space was about 3,000 more than I needed.  That – and it brought along a list of healthy expenses that could curtail any chance at retirement.

So I moved.  I figured out a way to buy a place in Cuyahoga Valley National Park; a modular home with neighbors a little over an arm’s length away and nothing like anywhere I’d ever lived before.  I managed to keep my house in the family by having my son take it over and, for now, make payments to me that I make to the bank until such time that he can get financing for it.  I bought a van I didn’t really need and began to convert it into a camping vehicle.  I picked a date to retire, filed for social security, ended my medical coverage and signed up for a short-term program, and, on January 1, began living a new and very different life.  I’m still forging and smelting the metal of my new life, but I’m doing it alone and it feels…invigorating!  It’s a little thing to lots of folks, but it’s something bigger to me and I’m proud, anxious, and excited.  At the very least, it’s a start.

Finding a stride...

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Thursday, January 16, 2020

I picked up my friend John this morning at 6:30 a.m. to take him to a doctor’s appointment.  He commented during the ride that he’d been reading the blog and said, “it’s not too much about retirement.”

My writing hasn’t been much about retirement, and neither has the time I’ve spent retired.  Sure…I’m going to the same place I’ve worked for the past six years and doing the same job I’ve done for the past six years two days a week and I’m getting calls from that same place every one of the days I’ve been off.  Additionally, I’ve been fighting, and losing, a battle with a chest cold the entire time and so have done little in the way of exercise – something I wanted to add to each of my postings during semi-retirement, but all of that is not the reason.  The real reason is, um, it’s…I don’t know.

I write so much more in my head than I ever put on paper – figuratively speaking, since I actually do my writing on the computer, that is.  I suppose like a lot of retirement people just getting started, I’m finding my stride.  I’m certainly still locked in the old working world and maybe there’s some comfort for me in that.  There’s something to be said for having a schedule and not having to create one each day.  As long as I keep working part-time, I can’t really get into a ‘new thing’…and that sounds more like an excuse than a reason.

I did receive a call from Joanne, an old friend in DC who runs the Brendan Sailing program for children with disabilities.  “I was wondering if you’d speak to our director about how the ‘Leave No Trace’ principles might fit in with our on-water program in our efforts to teach kids the importance of protecting Chesapeake Bay.”

I explained to her that I’m looking for something where I can give back and am particularly interested in things involving my passions – camping, hiking, kayaking, and cycling – and would love to speak to her director on the subject.  I hung up from her and dug into the LNT principles and saw an immediate segue for each of them to people sailing the Chesapeake and emailed her my ideas.  Things have developed and I will be traveling there next weekend to meet with the director and Joanne to explore not only the incorporation of the principles, but how I can be involved moving forward.

Monday and Wednesday were both days hovering near fifty, which is more than warm enough to ride the bike outside and so I took advantage of the opportunity.  In my head I decided that staying inside and doing little had done nothing to improve my chest cold so that maybe the fresh, cool air would help.  It didn’t in the end, but I felt better coughing in my leg-weary exhausted state than I did just sitting on the couch, so why not?

I had dinner with my daughter last night and after running stories I’d written in the blog and her mom’s reaction to them past her, she admonished me for not giving Holly a ‘head’s up’ about what I’d written before publishing.  We debated this point.  “It’s my life I’m trying to write about here and I own it.  I can’t call everyone affected and ask them for editorial approval or the story won’t be mine,” I argued.

“It’s your life, but it affects others and I think you should let them know when you write about them.”

I value Heidi’s opinion, but in the end and at some later time, I’m going to write so much more about what shaped me into me…if I can figure it out.  During that process, I’m sure to write things about friends and family that will possibly upset them.  I know how two people can be a part of the same life and situation yet view it in entirely different ways and that my view will surprise siblings, relatives and friends, but if I am to delve, it’s going to happen.

And how does any of that fit with retirement?  (Semi) retirement guys have more time to think…

Bike duration:  Two hours.

Training Heart Rate:  120 bpm.

Calories burned during workout:  1700.

Taking on cancer...

Sunday, January 12, 2020

I’m into my second week of semi-retirement and have had a nagging, mucus-filled cough for most of that time.  That, along with some severe neck and shoulder pain, have kept me inside and not exercising.  I hate excuses, but it is the reason I have been less than motivated to write in the blog though I continue to fill out my daily journal.

For the past year or so John’s wife Teri has suffered with uncontrollable dizziness and vomiting.  I would estimate that this condition has landed her in the hospital on at least six occasions and each time they have sent her home having reached no conclusion as to ‘why’.  They did see a growth in her brain early on, but were unconvinced it was playing any part.  She saw the best people in the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic and from there, the Mayo Clinic.  They went so far as trying to do a needle biopsy of the tumor, but with no success (missed it and couldn’t do the proper pathology).  Finally, this past December, the Clinic opened up her skull and was actually able to get a piece of the tumor to do the proper analysis.

Several days after the surgery, John texted me this: ‘Grade 4 inoperable, incurable and very aggressive tumor.  Prognosis with radiation and chemo is 14 months.’

As I read the text at work, tears welled in my eyes.  John, after all, is more of a brother than a friend.  I was his best man and he has been there with me through the best and the worst events of my life for almost thirty years.  To this point, the medical community as a whole did not believe the tumor they could see with an MRI was cancerous or dangerous (if they did, they didn’t share it with my friends.)  I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d arrived at the same conclusion the first time it had been spotted over a year ago, the prognosis today would be as bleak.  I’m sure John and Teri have had the same thought.  In any event, I reckoned in my head how life changing this news would become, comparing it in that way to the news I’d received seven years earlier about my marriage.  Though the potential outcomes were quite different (they’re not giving up and mine wouldn’t kill me), never the less the future each of us thought we were going to live was suddenly and irrevocably altered. 

I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d had a similar diagnosis whether I could ever have a waking moment where I wouldn’t be conscious of the tick, tick, tick of time.  I doubt it.  For good or for evil, it would be a part of every thought I would have and move I would make.  I figured that both John and Teri would be going through this and as important as they were to me, that I would have it close to the surface of my thoughts, as well.

Segue to three weeks earlier.  Holly’s fiancé Craig and I had a meeting of the souls and are now spending time in one another’s company comfortably.  I had reached the conclusion that if I am to be as active a part of the lives of my children and grandchildren, I need to accept his presence and be willing to be where he is in a way that leaves no one feeling uncomfortable.  It has been seven years and we have all acknowledged our separate and joint parts in what led to the divorce and to their getting married next month.  I actually can admit that I am happy for Holly.  I still love her and care about her happiness and I believe she will have more with him than she ever did with me.  And like her, I am finding more happiness with Miggie and my current life than I could have imagined was possible.  So be it.

As we gathered to exchange gifts as a family on December 28^th, Craig came to me with a large package at the end of the night.  “This is something special my brother collected and has been in my possession since he died.  I knew your feelings and figured you would appreciate it much more than I ever could,” he explained as I opened.

It was a framed, autographed picture of Lance Armstrong from the ‘Race for the Roses’ event in Austin in 1999.  Other autographs on the picture included Olympian Eric Heiden and five-time Tour de France champion, Miguel Indurain.  I was overwhelmed and honored and told him so.  I took it home and hung it on the wall of my family room.

With John and Teri coming over to share New Year’s Eve together, a thought began to hatch in my brain.  I sat on my sofa and studied the poster hanging a few feet from me and thought about what it represented – or could represent.  Lance Armstrong may have been a cheat and a diabolical person regarding associates who ratted him out and cost him his legacy, but he was still the baddest ass ever to ride a bicycle and possibly owned the most amazing story of someone beating cancer in the history of that horrible disease.  I mean, the guy had testicular cancer that metastasized into his lungs and brain and if memory serves, had a prognosis of surviving in the neighborhood of 5%.  From there, he went on to win seven straight Tours and is healthy and cured today, over twenty years later.  What if I gave this poster to them?  Wouldn’t his story inspire them both to the kind of positive attitude without which NO ONE ever beats the big ‘C’?  And so I pulled it off the wall, and called Craig to tell him what I was thinking.

“Honestly, John, it occurred to me that you might think that and I totally applaud your doing that with the poster.  I gave it to you, in any event, and you can do whatever you want with it, but yes, I think it’s a great idea,” he said.

I re-wrapped it and hoped they’d see it that way, too. 

It was the first time I’d seen them since hearing the news, but there was no awkwardness amongst friends that are so close – even in the face of such devastating news.  I felt and feel like I’m in it with them and I believe they did, as well.  We ate dinner and talked about life and then I presented them with the present. 

“There’s a story behind this present and one I think you’ll like,” I said as I handed it to them.  I told them how Craig and I had met several weeks ago and had coffee and a talk about everything that led us to the paths we currently walked.  Understanding and forgiveness were the theme of that meeting and I left it lighter and happier.  I explained how I’d been given the present for Christmas, but that we both thought it would be better in their hands.  I’d written a letter to accompany it, which explained that and why I thought they should have it and finished with a P.S. warning that ‘once you’ve beaten this thing, I get it back.’

She opened it and we all held back some tears through our hugs.  We spent the next half hour looking over the seven signatures on the poster, trying to align the right names with the scrawls that represented their names.  We discussed the importance of ‘believing’ and what effect will power and the mind had on any chance to survive a prognosis like hers. 

“I don’t know if it works, but I’m willing to bet you have no chance if you accept the prognosis and simply wait for it to happen,” I said.  Neither disagreed.

On New Year’s Eve seven years ago I received the worst news I’d ever gotten.  I’m hoping years from now, John, Teri and I will look back and say that this past one was ‘the best one I ever had.’  

Seeing things through a different lens...

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Wednesday, January 8, 2020

I received a very disturbing email from Holly, my former wife, regarding my first blog entry as ‘The (semi) Retirement Guy’.  She was upset with me for sharing details about what happened to me, and us, seven years ago.  This bothered me terribly because although I could not remember what I’d written exactly, I’d thought (or intended to) convey two very salient points. First – we were both hurt through what followed and led to our finally getting divorced in October, 2014, but continued to do everything that followed from a mutual love for each other.  I have never stopped loving Holly and never will.  We fell in love as teenagers, had four amazing children and, always in step and together, raised them in a loving, caring environment.  I would never intentionally do anything to hurt Holly and anyone who knows me well understands that – no one, I believed, more than her.

Second – though I only alluded to the help she gave me so that I could be where I am today, which is able to retire, it was only through her fairness and generosity in our financial settling of our marriage that I have the means to do so.

We spoke on the phone a day later at which time she acknowledged that, in fact, people do tend to view anything they read, hear about, or experience through the lens of their personal life experiences.  Holly had said she’d had a friend read what I’d written and suggested that I was ‘trying to get back at her’.  Since I have nothing to ‘get back’ at Holly for and have never felt that way, it was hard to read anything I’ve written and interpret it as such. 

Over the years since our break-up, no one who knows of our ongoing relationship understands it.  Even my closest family and friends struggled at first to get how we still gathered for Sunday family dinners, holidays, and some times just to catch up.  I tried to explain in terms they could understand that Holly and I not only loved each other and had a forty-year shared history filled with mostly happy events, but that we still ‘liked’ each other and cared deeply about what was happening to the other.  I don’t know how most marriages break up or what people who once loved each other enough to get married put each other through, but Holly and I, an experience of one, would treat each other with love and respect throughout the process and until this day.

I should also say that although it was Holly who met someone else, I learned to ‘own’ the reason it happened.  I was not a good husband in all aspects of what that really entails.  I took her and us for granted, assuming she would always be there and that I could do as I pleased without consequence to our marriage.  Where were the flowers?  Where was the understanding that you need to take an interest in what your partner likes and wants and try to do those things for them?  Why wasn’t I starting each day wondering what I could do that day to make her life a little better or special?  I was too interested in what made me happy to be thinking about what would make her happy.  I blew it then and I know it now.  It may be the most important ‘take-away’ I have and has led me to the person I am now – someone who actually does try to think of what I can do to make those I love, especially the one with whom I'm currently in a relationship, know that I’m thinking about, and caring for them.

I told Holly that I’m writing things in my blog now for the purpose of not only telling my story in a cathartic way, but in hopes that someone that doesn’t know me at all would read what I’ve written and gain something useful.  Sorry, Holly.  Though I may know a few people as good as you, I can think of no one better.

First real 'I'm not working' day...

Friday, January 3, 2020

I’d stayed up late the night before believing I should, and would, sleep in at least a little, on my first day of retirement.  And that’s what I did, until my phone rang at 7:45 a.m.

“Hey…this is Joe from Chagrin Pet and Garden.  On my way over to the farm to pick up the tractor,” the caller announced.

I squawked into the phone with a scratchy, congested voice I didn’t recognize as my own and one that the caller could not understand.  Finally, I issued the words ‘I’m home sick.’  He apologized and I disconnected.

I waited a few seconds and tried my voice again, calling to Dakota.  It was coming back, but I was anything but well.  As I dressed to take her out, I pondered whether I’d be doing anything beyond sitting on my couch and reading or watching more episodes of ‘Cheers’ that day.

Cream of Wheat with maple syrup and brown sugar improved my condition.  I decided to drive to Mimi’s for a visit and to do a couple of minor chores she needed me to perform before making a final decision on running and riding.  I set some mouse traps and picked up some downed branches before heading back home.  Justin called from the farm as I drove.

“The furnace filters arrived, but the furnace in the classroom upstairs has gone missing,” he told me.

“It’s not in the classroom,” I said.

“That’s what I said.  It’s missing,” he replied.

“No, no.  There never was one in the classroom.  It’s across the hall in the computer closet,” I clarified.  He'll figure it all out soon.

He said that the tractor had come back from Chagrin Pet & Garden with the wrong bucket attached, but that Leslie had straightened them out and they’d be coming to handle it later.  The new John Deere tractor purchase had become the tractor from hell story as we’d allowed an informal committee to get involved in its procurement,  but that’s a story for another day.

I got home and decided I couldn’t possibly skip my workout.  I’ve done this before – ignored symptoms of a bad cold or even an injury to continue working out on a regularly scheduled basis only to make things worse.  ‘Why change anything now?’ I thought as I put on my running gear.

It was in the mid-40’s and a light mist was falling.  The ground was muddy, slushy and cold, which never makes for a fun run, but I was determined to complete the Indigo Lake course and then maybe call it a day.  I started out feeling each step in a body that was still aching from the previous run.  Since I haven’t run with any consistency since last June, this was not a surprising development, however unpleasant.  I soldiered on thinking it would improve and I’d find some rhythm, but I never did.  I completed the run in 21:26 or about 30 seconds faster than I had two days earlier, but it didn’t feel good.  I skipped boarding the trainer for a ride, showered and flopped down in my recliner for some recovery time.

I have visions of a couple of months in warmer weather over the winters to come.  I have my Uncle Bill and Aunt Eunice in Florida who would love nothing more than an extended visit from their favorite nephew (or so I’ve told them) and I do see myself loading the van with the kayak and bike and heading west and south to take in one or several parks during those cold winter months.  It is what retired, northern residents do and why should I be any different?  I wrestling with that notion and another that says I should be involved in something, anything, that gives back to those less fortunate than me…even if it means I’m here all winter.  I hope to work out the details during my semi-retirement; trying on different ideas and seeing what takes.  It’s a work in progress…

Run duration:  21:26 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  140 bpm.

Calories burned:  400.

Bonus: 15,000 steps.

A lighter load...

Thursday, January 2, 2020

This would be the first day of the ‘semi’ in my semi-retirement.  I went to bed early because I was only getting worse and continued to cough throughout the night.  From 3:30 a.m. on, I didn’t sleep hardly at all and finally dragged myself from bed at 5:20 and got ready to go.

I’d made a large batch of salad with chicken breast meat cubed in for my lunches and put a couple of handfuls in a Tupperware container.  I grabbed an apple and a banana for the ride to work and jumped in the car.  Justin, the guy who was going to be working the three days I’d be retired, was waiting in the parking lot when I arrived.  We went over opening up the building and how I’d pass along tasks that needed to be completed along with how we’d communicate such things for about an hour before I got into the day.

I’d been off for most of the past two weeks and there was plenty to do, but I found there was a certain lightness to how I was feeling that I couldn’t at first identify.  As the day progressed and I completed the ‘task’ log I’d created for us, it dawned on me that I was no longer in it alone.  I have been a one-man show for the last six years, owning all of the improvements, repairs, contractor contacts, preventive maintenance, and volunteer groups, to name some of my responsibilities.  I would often go home wondering how I’d complete the next days’ tasks, not always certain if I could do it at all.  I’d taken the job knowing what I didn’t know but thinking I could learn it along the way.  For the most part, I’d done that, but there was, and is, stress is such a situation.

And yet…I wasn’t feeling it anymore…and it felt…wonderful!

Lisa, our volunteer coordinator, and someone I thoroughly enjoy working with, stopped me to ask a question.  “Since you’re off three days a week now…”

“Hold it right there,” I said, “you don’t know how many times I’ve heard that lately and it’s usually followed up with a job I can do.”

“…maybe you’d like to do some side work over at my farm?”

Aviva, another co-worker, was in the room and listening closely.  “My friend Amy who lives around the corner and has opened an new stable really needs a ‘John’.  I should take you over there to meet her, if you’d like to do some extra work,” she concluded.

Actually, I do like working side jobs.  I can do them at my pace and price and take what I want, rejecting stuff I dislike.  In fact, I rode over to Amy’s place to work on a wheelbarrow before heading to Mimi’s to fix her garage door before heading home.

I doubt I will lack for things to do and I’m thinking about them while I’m writing this.  I went to the movies last night to see ‘Ford verses Ferrari’, which was amazing, but skipped any outdoor activity.  Tomorrow is tomorrow and I will exercise on my first true retirement day…a day I would have been working otherwise. 

My first day...

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Technically, yes, it is the first day of my retirement though I have never worked anywhere in my life that didn’t give January 1^st as an official holiday. Still…

I suppose the biggest thing happening is financial right now…in my head, anyways.  I tend to procrastinate and I knew when this day came, I’d need to do something for medical insurance.  I’d met with my financial planner last fall and we’d discussed my options, one of which I’d said was to just go without coverage until Medicare kicked in, which would be in April.

“John…you just DON’T want to do that.  One serious accident and you could wipe out your retirement account,” he said.

He provided the name of a company that could handle my short term needs and get me set up with Medicare and a supplemental plan afterwards.  “Do this thing, John.  We’ll both sleep better.”

I finally connected with her on December 26^th.  “We still have time if you’d like to do this over the phone,” she said.  I did.  There is nothing I do more poorly than visiting sites that are ‘user friendly’ only to screw them up and not get what I was after. 

She described a plan that would cost me $700 a month, about what I’d have paid if I’d kept my Fieldstone medical policy through Cobra.

“Too rich for my blood, Sharon.  I was thinking of not having any coverage at all for three months and take my chances if it’s going to cost that much,” I said.

“Here’s something with a $10,000 deductible that would only run about $310 per month,” she offered.

Something in my wheelhouse and so I said ‘yes’.  She started asking questions for the application and once I’d given her my address, she surprised me by saying, “your premium just went down to $280 a month because you live in Summit County.”

Well damn, paying off again for moving into Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  She finished the paperwork and submitted my application.  “I should have an answer in a couple of days at most, but yours should fly through since you have no pre-existing’s and aren’t taking any prescriptions.”

She then go into the supplemental insurance I knew I would need once Medicare began in April.  I already knew, having signed up for Social Security benefits in October, that $140 would be deducted from my monthly check to cover Medicare.  I’d also heard from friends that a supplemental plan was essential as Medicare didn’t cover prescriptions, left a large deductible, offered no dental and had a co-pay for office visits.  I’d resigned myself to the fact that it was going to bite…and hard.

“The plan I suggest in almost all cases offers dental, covers the co-pay, a deductible of only $1,000, and covers prescriptions,” she said.  She rambled on so more about what it did and didn’t do, but I only partially listened, thinking ‘this is going to be expensive’.  Finally, I interrupted her saying, “Sharon, the suspense is killing me…how much will it cost?”

“The premium is $21 per month,” she said.

I was pretty sure I’d heard her right, but said, “I live by the adage that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!”

She laughed and assured me it did what it said and cost what I’d heard.  I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from my chest and I breathed deeply.  Why had I put this call off for so long?  Suddenly I felt as though I could make the retirement finances work even if I gave up the part-time job, which I would at some point.

“You can’t sign up for this until sometime after January 1^st and can do it yourself on-line or I can do it with you,” she said.  “Oh…and while we were looking at all that I received a confirmation on your short-term coverage.  You’ve been approved!”

No, no…let me sign up on-line by myself and possibly suffer a brain aneurism when I do any one of several things wrong and am never able to complete the transaction.  “Yeah…I think I’ll have you help me sign up for it,” I told her.  She wished me a happy New Year and said she’d call back after the first.

I’d woken up hacking and congested that morning and gave strong consideration to putting off my first retirement workout before concluding I just couldn’t start that way.  I put on my running gear and headed out for a loop around Indigo Lake.  It had snowed the day before, but was warming and the trail was sloppy.  I ran slowly but easily, completing the loop, a little over two miles, in 22 minutes.  Once back inside, I immediately hopped on the trainer, loaded a ‘Netflix’ movie on the computer, and rode for 40 minutes.  My goal was to get in my training heart rate zone for at least an hour and I’d managed.  I finished the work-out portion of the day by taking Dakota for a 3.5 mile hike and logging over 20,000 steps. 

So, yeah, it was a good first day.

Run duration:  22 minutes.  Bike duration:  40 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  140 running and 120 bpm on the bike.

Calories burned during workout:  400 running and 650 on the bike.

Bonus: 21,000 steps.

An Experience of One: My Journey as I see it...

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Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Though my semi-retirement officially starts on January 1, 2020 when I will begin working Tuesdays and Thursdays, I feel like it began seven years ago today, New Year’s Eve, 2012.  It was on that day that I confronted my wife of 37 years with suspicions that she and one of her clients were in more than a business relationship.  When asked directly, she would never lie about anything and didn’t that day.  “I’m in love with him.  I’ve met my soul mate,” she told me.

I crumbled as if struck by an anvil blow.  There it was, the thing I’d really never imagined was possible and for which I had done nothing to prepare, but would surely change everything I thought was going to happen in the latter years of our lives.  Among other thoughts I had that day was certainly a concern over how I would be living going forward and whether or not I’d ever be able to retire.

It was a terrifying journey, at first.  I love maps and use them extensively to get where I’m going, but could find none for this trip and it froze me in place.  My wife had handled all the finances, paid all the bills and done the budgeting.  I really didn’t know how much I would need to live in a future of which she was not a part and couldn’t begin to imagine when, or if, I’d ever be able to retire.

I had no choice, though, and so began with trepidation.  As these things do for so many people, and with the help of my soon to be ex-wife for we surely still loved each other very much, they worked out for me.  I discovered a strength in me that I had never tested before and through time spent in a relationship with a perceptive lady after the divorce, that I needed to find happiness within before I could really get on with my life in a satisfying and complete manner.

So…I dated.  I budgeted.  I saved and I planned.  I bought a new place in a modular home community in Cuyahoga Valley National Park where I could bike, hike and kayak to my heart’s content while cutting my living expenses in half.  I began to weave a new life with as many of the threads of the old as I could salvage and muster. 

And in that planning, the item that most dominated my thinking were thoughts of retirement and the life I would lead when the last workday ended.  I wanted it to include traveling North America and seeing all the wonders of the national and state parks; to hike, bike and kayak my way across the continent.  I bought a mini-van and began converting it to something out of which I could launch these trips and have a base camp to return to at the day’s end.  As the time drew nearer and the reality of it began to materialize, I will admit there was panic and concern over whether I could afford it and make it happen.  I visited my financial planner who, when reviewing my simple, minimalist lifestyle, felt reasonably certain I could make it work.  I applied for Social Security and spoke to an insurance agent to secure medical insurance for the three months I’d be uncovered before Medicare kicked in and to add a supplemental plan to go with the Medicare. 

And then I started taking a harder look at my conditioning.  I’m not kidding myself here.  I’m not what I was when I was doing the Survival Workout in my ‘Back to Basics’ blogging days.  Though I’m still reasonably fit due to the nature of my job and the fact that I pound out 20,000 steps most days, I’m a far cry from what I expect of myself if I hope to achieve the biking and hiking I have planned for the years to come.

So…I didn’t wait.  Two days ago, I hopped on the trainer and rode for 30 minutes.  Yesterday, I ran for twenty minutes, which felt pretty easy by the way, and then rode another 30 minutes on the trainer.  Later that day, I hiked 3.5 miles with Dakota.  I’ve dropped down on several occasions and done some push-ups so my body won’t go into total shock when I actually do begin the Survival Workout once more.  I also bought the salad ingredients I need to put more wholesome choices in the refrigerator.

I have a plan and I have the determination to make it happen.  I’m going on this journey, as so many of us do, and I hope to write about it in a way that keeps some people reading and others thinking and wondering about how they’ll handle theirs.  It will be a discovery; a journey of awareness of how blessed I have been and of the wonders I can still find and enjoy.  I hope to change, to expand beyond limited expectations, to challenge and improve myself.  I will write this blog as a testament to that goal.  Join me.