Here I go again.
Yes, children of the 80’s, that’s a Whitesnake song now playing in your head. The songs of yesterday live rent free in my head.
Lately I’ve been wading in a sea of possibilities and having commitment issues. Until I was 40 I lived a life that was pretty much by the book.
You know, college, marriage, 2 kids, a dog, a career, a house in suburbia, all more or less in the expected order. Order. That’s what my life felt like until I was about 40. At that point I wanted anything but order. Anything but predictable. Anything but what I was “supposed to” do.
And so 15 years later, here I am at 55. The kids moved out, I got (and beat) cancer, we quit our jobs, rented out our house in the SF Bay Area and haven’t looked back. What we’ve been doing for the last 2.5 years is for another day, but today we are living in an Airbnb in Gig Harbor, Washington until January of 2023 when we will head back to Sayulita, Mexico for a few months. After that, we have no plans.
We tend to live about 6 months into the future, max. Each year has been a little bit different, but as of today, I honestly don’t know what we’ll do come spring of 2023. We have some ideas, but zero actual plans.
And I’m OK with that. Actually, I thrive on that.
I never dreamed I would be anywhere close to retirement at the age of 52, but that’s exactly when I said ‘enough.’ My cancer diagnosis played a big part in finding the courage to leave all of the by-the-book crap behind and start re-imagining what life could look like. I’d like to think I would have come to that place without cancer, but I’ll never know.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge two key points here:
#1 - My privilege. While I’ve had some challenges in my life, I have been gifted the privilege of being a white, middle-class person my whole life. I did earn it, and I did not have the challenges, disadvantages and oppression that many people have. I fully acknowledge this.
#2 - My husband. My partner-in-crime. My ride-or-die. He has not just been along for the ride, but has been driving and singing and dancing along side of me through all of this. He has been game for whatever is next and is just as much in the “chuck-it-in-the-fuckit-bucket” mindset as I am. He nursed me through chemo and did the lion’s share of the logistics to get us out of Silicon Valley suburbia and on the road to wherever.
Having spent most of my career working in start-up environments, I’m pretty good at chaos, ambiguity, and uncertainty.
And now I know what the universe was teaching me all of those years. I know how to plan just enough, but not too much. I know how to pivot when externalities change. I know how to adjust to new circumstances and get comfortable in new places with new faces. I know that when something you were really hoping for doesn’t work out it’s OK because something new is just around the corner, especially if you keep your eyes open.
These are some of the blessings of mid-life. Experience. Perspective. Resilience.
And what it buys me is a world of opportunities.
“And I’ve made up my mind. I ain’t wastin’ no more time. And Here I Go Again.”
Great opening. I'm 55 too. I think I did things the opposite way to you, chaos for the first part, order now.