A New Beginning

No, this is not a Little House retrospective.

Mary and I are going to be spending the weekend planning a new course for our lives together. It seems we’ve come to a fork in the road and it’s time to consider Frost’s advice. We won’t map out the entire future course in two days, but it’s time we started the conversation.

For the last fourteen years, Mary has worked for the same company. She was a valued and valuable employee, a member of the management team and had the self-fulfillment of knowing she was among the best at what she did.

Although she is still as good as ever, the job had recently ceased to be fulfilling. Enough said about that except that in her newly jobless situation, Mary is presented with opportunities as well as challenges. With no school age children to account for, and the economy recovering despite what some politicians would have us think, a woman with her qualifications has options.

My job is changing as well, but in perhaps some more positive directions. Still, a job is a job and outside of employment considerations, I’m looking toward more fulfilling prospects on a personal level – finally finishing my degree, working on a book that’s been rattling around in my noggin for what seems ever, reaching out to others in our geographic area who share my outdoor interests.

As we think about how we’d like to spend the next pre-retirement five to ten years, it feels like we’re back in Fresno asking the what-if questions we asked ourselves and each other a quarter century ago. The intervening years have been shaped in large part by the need to provide stability and direction for our children. No regrets there – we were, after all, volunteers for the campaign.

But our great good fortune is that both of our daughters are intelligent, self-directed and substantially independent, leaving us with a sense of freedom we’ve seldom felt during our married life.

At the same time, freed from the scheduling constraints of building sets for plays, PTA meetings ad infinitum and line-judging / scoring for volleyball tournaments, we’ve reached out and reconnected with friends with whom contacts during the child rearing years were occasional at best. Friends from high school, our sibs and various cousins are back in our lives, enriching them beyond measure.

I could go on and on with this one but it’s a Saturday morning and chores demand attention without regard to employment status or wistful imaginings for the future. Let me just leave you with this:

If you’re reading this and know how to get hold of us directly, please do. We’d welcome a chat. Especially if you’ve ideas as to which path we should take.