Who knows what might happen next…
Living the dailies, raising a family, going to work every morning, stuck in rush hour traffic behind some car spewing exhaust fumes, I had this restive uneasiness that it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. More of what, I wasn’t completely sure. Just something more fulfilling than grinding away every day trying to please a boss or a board of directors. Which, as you might know, is a moving target you may or may not hit. And since the compensation for such efforts may often feel inadequate, it begins to feel like the choices you’re making about how you’re spending your life could be better.
So when the dream job I adored and expected to retire from didn’t turn out quite that way, I was faced with one of those rare opportunities to make a radically different choice. Into what, I had no clue, but an opportunity to find some more fulfillment, some more meaning, some more JUICE! Hoo-ya!
The thing is, I really WANTED to get carried away by adventure, by discovery, by life. I wanted to live a passionate life! But how do you do that when you’ve got responsibilities? Or when you’re unemployed, not at your career prime (politically correct language for being over 60), and being in such financial straits, you declare yourself formally retired so you can collect Social Security – which won’t even pay the rent?! How do you launch into a juice seeking, passionate adventure then?! Come on. Get real.
Well – actually, what better time is there? Even though we didn’t have a clue what to do next, being the adventurers we like to think we are, McDean (my better half) and I decided to throw ourselves into unknown territory, follow our hunger for more juice in our lives, put everything we owned into storage and move to Mexico. If not now, when? Caution be damned!
And since we’re being completely candid here, as we’re trying to figure out what to do next, McDean and I are making it up as we go. Never been this old before (duh!), never didn’t go into an office every morning before, never tried to live on a small, fixed income before, and definitely never before lived in a foreign culture where we didn’t speak the language. In fact, never even gave any of this much thought until that big opportunity (the unexpectedly disappearing job) opened our door without knocking. Looking back on it from here, I’m really glad it did. Maybe, taking this leap into the possibility of a bigger life, I might discover enough juice that it drips from my chin like a ripe, juicy peach. Might find out this is what I’ve dreamed of doing all my life. It’s worth finding out.
Who knows what might happen next? Maybe something extraordinary. Maybe there will be something in all this that will help you see a little differently too, consider making some choices of your own, make you smile – or even laugh. We could all do with some more laughter. Especially us stumblers.
