Some people, like my husband, start looking toward and planning for their retirement from the start of their career. I think individuals whose professions offer a guaranteed percentage of their wages after X number of years are conditioned to keep their eye on that defined prize, counting the days until they are FREE!
For me that was not the case. My career path has been winding and varied, with much of it spent as an entrepreneur. As a creative marketing and design professional I always made enough to get by – whether drumming up my own business or freelancing/contracting for others, but didn't often save and certainly didn't have a 401k match or pension plan adding up. I finally realized I'd better have more of a plan in place somewhere in my late 30's, early 40's.
After marrying my husband and having "our" retirement become more of a topic, we loosely decided I'd retire about one year after he did, which would have been about September of 2020. Instead of that being the way things went down, I found myself unemployed as of July 2019, with severance to carry me through November 2019, just before everyone else's employment changed or halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here I am, almost a year later, in this weird, limbo, unemployed state that I can't seem to call "Happily Retired". I've been forced to look at how much of my feeling of self worth came from my job; from earning money and getting praise for a job well done. I like to have objectives laid out before me and a plan to reach them. I like to finish things so I can check that box. Or so I thought!
I don't feel like I checked the retirement box. I feel like I was pushed out the door, definitely NOT on my own terms. Nothing like how my husband left his job after 30+ years with fanfare and celebration.
I'm looking for what's next for me and I want it to be something I cannot WAIT to work on every day. And I want it to make a positive impact on a soul level for as many people as possible — to offer insight, peace, light, and inspiration to a world that is weary of conflict, polarization, separation and uncertainty. Could you use any of that?
Then I thought...What if I Yoga?
And there you have it.
