Bed 72. Year is Ending but Gap Year Continues. It Is All a Transition.

     We are now living in Bend in our new little cottage-style house. The house wasn't quite finished when we moved in. Kitchen drawers, a shower door, a bathroom mirror, cabinet glass were missing as well as some wall paint, closet inserts, closet drawers, light fixtures and all the landscaping and fencing.  But in we moved because either we moved in or we headed to a hotel for our generous rental situation had come to a close.

     In we moved while an army of contractors marched about the house, mostly finishing the unfinished details. While R and I experienced some excitement as we reacquainted ourselves with the belongings we'd sent to storage nine months before ("I remember that" at times one of us would exclaim as well as "Geez, I don't remember that. Did you buy that?"), the most exciting moving day event was the delivery of our new bed. As someone who has slept in a wide variety of beds over the year-- well 71 beds exactly if I don't count the bed on the ship in Baja or one in a Seal Beach hotel .....I know what constitutes a good bed. This new bed is excellent.  It is dreamy, comfortable, gives and supports in just the right places, and is enormous. I've dressed it in new Egyptian cotton sheets, smooth, cool, soft, and luxurious and wrapped it all in a fluffy, allergen free comforter. I love the bed. It is ours and it is stationary.  

     Stationary? When did that benign word become so foul? The stationary part bothers me.  I have fallen for a bed that doesn't travel and already doubt that this special new love is strong enough to hold me in place for now.  Comfortable, dreamy new beds are no cure for itchy feet. Oh well.

Happily, the gap year continues, at least until June. Small adventures await -- a road trip to Tucson for Spring cycling, a family celebration in Palm Springs. Then bigger adventures follow -- a transatlantic cruise with stops in Spain, France, and Italy and land travels in Italy including a cycling tour in Puglia and another possibly in France.

What a year. Most of it far better, more interesting, more enlivening, more engaging then I'd ever imagined. Some of it, like the almost daily scrambling for a place to stay in July as we traveled during summer's high season was unpredictably challenging. We made it. It was a transition. Biggest lesson from the year is that all of life is a transition, if you are lucky.  Because that means you are moving forward. That also means you'll have lots of new experiences that in many ways mirror the first day of kindergarten -- new place, possibly scary new people, many of whom are way taller than you, unclear expectations, mysterious rules for performing. And figuring out, in that delicate, intuitive manner most of us employ who might make a good friend. Luckily, this time, however, you'll have lots of previous life experiences to guide you.

     Has life as a 24/7 couple been......challenging? You bet. I imagine that R had no idea the length of time I can be annoying. I never knew he could sit quietly for such long stretches working on financial analysis.  He never knew that I need a far amount of silence each day in order to settle my mind. While we knew we were prone to power struggles, who knew every request for directions (and we've managed lots and lots of directions over the year) potentially could dissolve into a battle of who knows-the-best-way-to-go. We've learned to name the struggle and attempt to collaborate around directions. All this is amusing since I'm directionally challenged and R is easily disorganized. We've both confirmed that while cities are wonderful places to visit, nothing beats nature for calming the soul and putting one's place in the world in perspective. And we've both learned to bite our tongues during certain times. That is good relationship advice.

     We are both extremely grateful for the past nine months and feel blessed to have had these experiences -- together. 

     Now on to 2015. We have some planning to do and today there is a cross-country ski lesson with my name on it waiting for me at Mt. Bachelor. 

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for a Healthy New Year. Life is Short. Get Moving!

Restless Soul

     We are holding steady at 70 beds. That means, of course, that we are not traveling but staying put. Currently, we are in Bend, OR impatiently waiting for the finishing on our house to finish up. I find visiting the house building site every day, checking for progress, a fairly unsatisfying hobby, especially since the builder hasn't uttered the magic move-in-date. R seems to enjoy the process more than I do. Good on him, as the New Zealanders say.

While our bed count holds steady, we did buy a bed yesterday.  Admittedly, R was much more the driving force behind this purchase. (He was even excited about the "free" pillows that came with the bed. I took mine because -- it was free.) I was a reluctant, rather crabby and petulant dragged-along partner. Why?

I am a restless soul. Perhaps if I own a bed, I'll be required to sleep in my own bed more frequently than I want to. And I think the bed comes with a life-expectancy longer than what's predicted for either one of us.

When we lived in Chicago, I was much less restless. In winter I wore layers of clothing -- base layer, office layer, a sweater or blazer and then an outside coat, ear covers, hood for my head, wool scarf, sometimes one scarf for my face and one for my neck, gloves, sometimes two pairs, and boots. Geez!  I theorize that my restless soul was muffled in all those layers.  I could not hear her call.

That theory, of course, is somewhat silly. 

     A former clinical consultant frequently used the term "unleashed," usually referring to someone letting loose of pent up feelings. The unleashing was experienced as a bit of a storm or a full blown hurricane, depending on the situation. Work provides so much good stuff for many of us. Satisfaction, structure, identity, and money. But work requires that in trade we give up the freedom to do......whatever we want. The freedom of my gap-year adventure has unleashed in me ....what?......... A spirit of adventure? Wanderlust? Restlessness? Curiosity? Discontent?

Yup.
I've just re-read Joe Hearn's article "8 Habits of Highly Successful Retirees" on marketwatch.com.  Want to guess what the number one habit is for successful retiring?  Live life with URGENCY.  That's right. Successful retirees know that their time is limited, it is precious.  As I said, there is a good chance the new bed will outlive me. Since we've been back in the states, several times R has said something like this in response to my "Let's get crackin'" attitude. 
"We've only been back nine days. We have time. What's the hurry?"
To which I answer, "We've actually been back 11 days (not that I'm counting). I want to get going."

Urgency. That's what I feel.
I have things to do.  Some I know and some I've yet to figure out.

Us --  at the end of New Zealand bike tour. Where next?

Of Bags and Baggage (Emotional)

There is a joke told about cruise ship passengers -- that people get on as passengers and leave as cargo. The joke, of course, refers to the amount of food many passengers consume during their cruise and thus the resulting weight gain. I've been a little surprised to learn over the course of this year that's not the only kind of possible passenger cargo on ships.
     On a transatlantic cruise this past spring, the ship's captain made a detour toward a small island country so that a very ill passenger could be transferred to a smaller boat and then taken to a hospital on land. Prior to this event, I'd given little thought to what happens if a passenger becomes critically ill while in the middle of an ocean.  But after this "rescue at sea," I started observing that more than a fair share of passengers on that cruise looked unfit enough that they might be traveling against  physicians' advice. I silently wondered why someone would place themselves at such risk given if they had a heart attack or stroke halfway across the sea, the outcome might be.....fatal.

On our recent 29 days at sea, I heard several older passengers say, kiddingly I thought, that the cruise line should offer a burial at sea plan. One gentleman listed the number of people he knew who had died recently while on cruises. About midway through the cruise, R and I were chatting with a crew member who for decades worked on a cruise ship that offered lots of round-the-world cruises. Because of the advanced ages of most passengers, someone died on the ship almost every two weeks.  Passengers, er "passing" was so frequent that the ship had a morgue close to the ship's hospital.  Apparently some passengers embraced the "Let-me-have-one last cruise and leave as cargo plan." What I saw as risk -- too ill for long trips on the seas -- others viewed as an enjoyable way to leave life. This was a different perspective from mine but at least I now understood what others were joking about.

  There is another kind of baggage we all carry with us wherever we travel and that's our emotional baggage. Oddly enough when I travel, I frequently not only face my own emotional baggage, but I usually encounter someone else's.

  I really like my chosen profession of psychotherapist and I love that over the years I've helped many people. It is also clear to me that more than a few people view psychotherapists with some suspicion. During our recent travels by ship, we were seated next to a young honeymooning couple. After chatting with them about their wedding and future plans, food, and other topics, they moved on to the topic of work. R, who is retired, explained the various positions he held over 42 years of employment. The couple talked about their work and then it was my turn to answer the how-do-you-make-a-living question.  I explained that I'm a psychotherapist who is taking some time off to travel and answered the non-confidential questions about my work -- former office location, where I trained, stuff like that. The topic seemed to be quietly fading, when one of them looked at me quite intently and said:

"I just have one question for you. Do you think I'm insane?"

In the five seconds that I pondered the question several responses flashed through my  mind, including the most obvious -- "I didn't before but now I do just because you've 
asked this stupid question." Rather than give my honest opinion, I gave a practical answer 
and the one I hoped would stop all further questions.

"Insanity is actually more a legal definition and not a mental health diagnosis," I said.
I secretly hoped this person would magically disappear and take his emotional baggage with him.

  For the rest of the trip, I considered using a vague response when asked my profession.  I practiced saying something like, "What I do is confidential and I can't really talk about it" or I thought about lying, saying I held a classified position with the CIA.
But I didn't. Probably because I'm proud of my profession.

     As our travels continued we joined a tour group and early on many in the group asked what I did for a living.  One evening while sipping wine before dinner, someone asked me "When people find out your profession do they stop talking to you for fear you are analyzing them?" I was momentarily stumped for I hadn't noticed people avoiding me though it did seem that R and I were not sought after in the group. In fact, that very night no other tour guests sat with us at dinner. Hmmmm.  Since we are moving to a new town and will be actively shopping for friends, this was not good news. Therapist-as-suspect.

A day later someone in the group said he'd heard I was a therapist and then asked  "Are 
you always analyzing everyone in the group and figuring out who is crazy?"

There is just no good answer to that question.

Baggage. It is everywhere. And not just the cargo kind. I wonder if the CIA is hiring.

70 Beds and Counting.

60 Beds. Celebrate? Or.....? I'm not sure.

We are on Kangaroo Island, a sliver of land off the Southern Australian coast. To get here, we took a shuttle, a bus, a ferry and then another shuttle. Last night we also slept in our 60th bed in just over seven months. Should we celebrate that achievement? Grieve? I'm just not really sure.  And I'm not exactly clear how I feel about long term rambling.

On the one hand, having slept in 60 beds means we've covered lots of travel territory. Let's see, we've crossed from Chicago to California by car with stops in Colorado (Mesa Verde, Nat. Park), Tucson (Sanguaro Nat. park), and Palm Desert. We've crossed the Atlantic by ship with stops in Normandy, France, Lisbon Portugal, and Amsterdam. We traveled by train, plane and bike to Brussels, Dublin, Ireland's Connemara Coast, Scotland, and Copenhagen and by ship to Norway, Iceland, Shetland Island, Faroe Islands and by land to London and then by plane to NYC. Back in the US, we made stops in Seal Beach, CA, San Juan Islands, WA, Ashland, OR, Crater Lake, OR, Olympic Nat. Park, WA and the Oregon coast. Quite the gap year of travel.

Just as summer was yielding to fall in North America, we set off for Vancouver, BC for a cruise to several Hawaiian Islands (Hawaii, Maui, Oahu) and on to Southern Hemisphere locations such as Tahiti, Bora Bora, North Island of New Zealand and finally Sydney where Spring has taken hold. In less than a week, we'll head to New Zealand to join a bike trip. This is all good. In fact, it is great and we consider ourselves lucky.

When I was working, I was mesmerized by stories, blogs, articles about vagabond 
seniors who had sold their homes, cars, unnecessary stuff and set off with a bag each and an enthusiastic sense of adventure. I deeply envied these folks and their freedom, especially when I battled Chicago's Siberian-style winters. Now I'm sort of one of those vagabond seniors, but on a temporary basis, for we still own a car that's resting in Bend, have stuff stored in Indiana, and have a contract on a house that is about six weeks away from completion.

Despite my freedom, I have mornings when I wake up homesick for my own place. While I might be in a great city like Sydney, I long to slip on my yoga pants (which are stored in some unknown place), stream an American movie, stretch out on the couch (which no hotel room we've stayed in has) and simply hang out. But how silly would it be to "waste" a travel day doing that? At times, I miss down time.

Anyone who knows me and probably every person who stepped into my practice knows my love for the "Cost - Benefit Analysis," which simply stated means for every decision or choice we make there is a cost and a benefit. When we choose something, we let go of something else -- but not without a cost.

Our seven months of "gap-yearing about" has afforded us travel experiences and memories and some great times with family and friends. But it has come at the cost of missing birthday celebrations, family gatherings, conversations with friends, more than a few dental appointments, frequently laundered clothes, and who knows what else that make up the richness and routine of life. At some point in our travels, I saw a t-shirt that boldly exclaimed "You can have it all -- just not all at the same time." I like this thought, though I would amend it to "Many can have it all -- just not all at the same time." For me, it captures the essence of the cost-benefit analysis. It also helps me clarify how I feel about the 60 beds -- and still counting. I can have it all, far-reaching travel, family gatherings, time with friends who are scattered afar, clean clothes, and my own home --  just not all at the same time. 

Celebrate the 60 beds (and counting) it is. Dressed in our clothes of questionable cleanness, we watched a female kangaroo feed while the Joey tucked safely in her pouch intently watched us. Earlier, we witnessed a young male koala attempt to scale a fence, quickly give up, and then dash to the safety of a bushy tree where he indulged our endless photo taking. These adorable marsupials helped us celebrate R's birthday in a special way. Oh, time enough in the future for cleaner clothes, American movies, and a couch and home of our own. For now we'll keep counting those beds.

Relationships and Long Term Travel

     
     I'm in the ship's workout room riding a stationary bike and watching a relationship drama unfold.  A couple, probably in their early to mid-70s, is preparing for a treadmill workout. They select treadmills located side by side; both are wearing iPod head sets so presumably they are screening out each other.  He fusses with one treadmill and then another until he settles on the perfect one. She eyes him suspiciously.
  They begin their treadmill walk, both plugged into their headsets. Within a few minutes, she glares at him and tells him to stop talking. He glares back and says he isn't talking.  Apparently, they can hear each other with the head sets on. They continue walking.
   A few more minutes pass.  This time she thwacks his arm and growls something at him.  He responds "I'm not singing." They both pause for a few seconds, eyes locked in anger, then resume their walking.
   Their mini-relationship drama has captured my attention. I take note that there are at least ten available treadmills; it is not necessary that they position themselves next to each other. Though of course, they believe it is necessary.

  As a therapist, I could generate several interpretations regarding the dynamic this couple is playing out. But I'm not interested in doing that. Instead I'm thinking about a solution to their problem and a common problem most traveling couples have.  I know that if I gently tapped each of them on the shoulder and shared my thoughts, they would likely glare at me. So I keep my wisdom to myself, and they continue their less-than healthy relationship cycle.

     Ready for a little "This is what I've Been Learning and Living"?

     When couples travel long term (long as personally defined) they absolutely need to heed this first rule:
1. Don't spend every moment together!  Absolutely engage in some activities separately and with other people. The gym is the perfect place to take such a break. If this couple had selected workout machines in different parts of the gym, thus putting a little needed distance between them, their gym visit and perhaps the overall trip might have gone better. For heaven's sake, take breaks!

Rule #2 is equally important but tricky for many people to carry out. It is also quite necessary to master if you want Rule #1 to work.

2. Speak up for what you want and need, including some time to yourself. It is not rude or mean to say, "I need some time to myself" or some kind version of that. If you need time alone, tell your partner/spouse/person. I suspect many people worry about offending the other person -- but really, it is kinder to request time alone than to let your frustrations build up to the point you can't stand the other person's singing or talking. Or just can't stand the other person and end up thwacking him in the gym.

In some ways people are a mystery, mostly to themselves.  People are also funny, messy, and inconsistent beings and it can be woefully easy for us to lose perspective on what we are experiencing, even when it is the good stuff. With that said, if rules #1 and #2 seem unattainable, I have another suggestion.

3. Have an internal conversation with yourself (that's right, talk to yourself) and remind yourself that you are on a fabulous trip and that your partner/spouse/person has many good qualities. If you can, go as far listing his/her qualities.

I believe the couple in the ship's gym forgot that they are on a beautiful ship, had already stopped at several Hawaiian islands, Tahiti, and Bora Bora, and were on their way to New Zealand, and then Australia. They have forgotten that they are lucky -- lucky because they can still walk on the treadmill, lucky they can travel, lucky they are alive.  In other words, they both needed to remember the good and appreciate what they have.

But humans are so flawed! R and I have been traveling in various ways for seven months. At times, I certainly forget my own rules. Watching the mini-relationship drama was a good reminder that I am lucky.

     As for the bed count, for a few days we are holding firm at 58 beds but more to come 
because we are almost to Australia and then New Zealand. We are very lucky.

Gap Year Travel -- Repositioning cruises, distance from former life, and what am I learning about myself?

When I was working, I knew nothing about repositioning cruises.  But then why would I?  Spending my limited vacation time at sea for long stretches made little sense. I first read about repositioning cruises on the Home Free Adventures blog. Those folks use such cruises as a mode of transport, a way to travel from point A -- the states -- to point B -- Europe. This system works especially well when one does not have a permanent home. Twice a year, cruise lines need to move their ships from one cruising area to another and often offer temptingly affordable rates to those who want to travel along. Many repositioning itineraries exist but typical cruises are  transatlantic cruises from Florida to Europe with many days at sea while crossing the ocean. R and I took such a cruise in the spring, traveling 15 days from Fort Lauderdale to Amsterdam. We imagined the lengthy cruise would help us both begin the necessary process of distancing from our lives in Chicago. We sort of overlooked the potential for boredom and sameness. On the spring cruise, we spent nine long days at sea, at least five of them on the rather rocky Atlantic. Admittedly, I became restless.

Currently, we are on a 17 day repositioning cruise from Hawaii to Sydney with stops in Tahiti, Bora Bora and the North Island of New Zealand. Prior to our finalizing plans and payment for this cruise, R asked me if I could manage five days at sea at a time (actually we have 11 sea days total) given that I grew restless on the transatlantic cruise.

"Of course I can," I told him.  "I learned a lot on the transatlantic cruise about how to manage sea days. I'll be fine. I've downloaded more books, I'll sign up for activities. It will be great."

      R and I have been together a long time. Soon we'll celebrate 34 years.  As the words were coming out of my mouth, we both understood that I was kinda lying to him and myself, not about the books or activities, but about managing.  My shelf life for the sea is three days. After that point, I grow restless, which is a polite way of saying I get a little bored.

Many people onboard have solved the issue by getting up each morning, eating, and then immediately spending their days sacked out by the pool, only rousing to eat again and drink.  While this system has many merits, it holds no interest for me.

So far, I've read three books, attended daily port and naturalists' lectures, watched evening live entertainment and daytime cooking demonstrations, attended cocktail party-like ship receptions and joined in wine and martini tastings. I've gone to the gym each day, taken spin classes, shown people how to use the gym equipment. I've watched people dance, played trivia, played scrabble, played Angry Birds, played with my iPad and used way too many of my expensive Internet minutes looking up stuff. I've even engaged in too many conversations about my hair, color and cut. We have both bored people who ask where we live with our tale of roaming houselessness. I have run out of things to do that interest me. I need land.

As I've expanded my understanding of retirement and other big transitions, one idea is clear: In retirement, one may have more freedom, fewer restrictions and fewer responsibilities, but our personalities and core preferences don't necessarily change, though perhaps they expand. Most of us will add to our identities as we transition from work to the next phase. But who we are will remain the same.

My gap year is reminding me that I'm someone who likes new experiences, loves learning, and is easily bored by too much sameness. All good to know as I create this next phase. And happily, we have spent a day on Tahiti and out the window, I see land! It is Bora Bora.

This is Bora Bora!
 

Gap Year Travel: Where will we go? How will we travel? All depends.

When people plan for travel, many consult their  "bucket list,"  a list of things they want to do before they, er well, kick the bucket.  I personally dislike the term bucket list, partly because of its reference to death and partly because it reduces lived experiences to a kind of check list. Visit Japan. Check. Visit Australia. Check. Sky dive. Check. To my mind, traveling opens the possibility for rich experiences yet to discover. I like the idea of an experience list instead.

Don't you just love fantasy? In my fantasy world that's how planning would go-- rich experiences first and practical considerations like we need a place to sleep would come much later. But my current reality is far from fantasy. We just sold where we were living and now we need a bed. For the second time this year, we are houseless.

Back story: In between short trips over the summer, we'd been living in our tiny ski condo, really our primary residence, until our scheduled October travel departure date. We'd planned to sell the condo close to the first of the year (once our house is ready) but apparently the urge to divest ourselves of real estate ties, to further untether, proved too strong. That and prices and demand recovered. Untethered we would be and without a reasonable place to sleep. Our home in Chicago sold in four days so of course the condo sold quickly too.

Rich travel experiences?

No. How about where should we sleep for two and a half weeks? For two people who had planned most aspects of their lives, we seemed a little random, even to us.

Since we were already booked on a cruise from Hawaii to French Polynesia and on to Sydney, Australia we thought we'll just add a first leg to the trip -- Vancouver, BC to Hawaii and around the islands. Problem solved. We'd have a bed, plenty of food, an exercise room, and distractions.

And we've lucked out because some rich experiences are in the mix -- tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, cycling to Kilauea volcano, hiking in Maui. Not bad for a random decision.

I believe there is a gap year lesson embedded in this story though I'm not completely clear what it is. Perhaps it is something like......after decades of responsible living, we need a little calculated randomness to help us transition into the next phase.  Off we go.

When you don't have a home, where is home?

In the spring when my gap year with travel began, we were a little uncertain how our plan would go.  Actually, I was uncertain about everything. After our trip to Bend where we signed a contract on a yet-to-be built house with promised delivery for mid-December and deposited a huge check into an escrow account, we still seemed reluctant to claim Bend as our future home. In what I considered a step toward stability I decided  to call the new city home. When asked "Where do you live...? I  planned to answer Bend.

As I moved forward with my plan, I noticed that R still told people we were from Chicago. Often his explanation came with a fairly lengthy description of our travels and rarely mentioned Bend. I guessed that those he spoke to assumed we lived apart.

I found this a little disturbing mostly because I worried that he had forgotten we had moved, together.

"You do know we no longer live in Chicago, right?" I ask in an unusually kind way.

He nodded that he did and agreed he'd start telling people who asked that we lived in Bend. Which was not really true because we weren't living there and wouldn't be there for months and we did not have a home there only an escrow account.  While the anxiety of rootlessness was fogging my mind, I was growing clear about one thing, we were houseless. Now I really felt uncertain about everything and we both hadn't a clue where we lived.

Not long after, R was tested. We flew from LAX to Florida where we would board a ship for a transatlantic crossing followed by six more weeks of travel.  A friendly flight attendant started chatting with us and ultimately asked where we were from. We both paused and I offered up, "No where." Great, I thought, good answer. R said that we are homeless. She looked at us suspiciously. I got it, we did not look homeless even if we both felt that way.  After a brief silence, I explained that we'd sold our Chicago home and would travel for a few months before transitioning to the west.

"I like that plan" she said with a big smile. "That's a great plan." 

"Then where will you live? Los Angeles?"

Bend, Oregon we said, almost in unison. 

"Oh, Bend." Oregon is nice. Rustic, like Seattle."

At that moment, I believe we located home.

Sorting, Packing, and Separating: Here We Go Again

(How Much Stuff Do We Really Need?)

We are packing, again, for our next adventure of two months.  Given how many places we've visited this year, you'd think we'd be packing experts. But we are not, at least not in the emotional responses to packing. Of course, this year we've been pairing packing with selling real estate so that combo tends to up the emotional stakes. No matter what,  
packing for long trips brings out our grouchy, anxious sides. 

It all started in Chicago where for six months we sorted, tossed, packed, cleaned, repaired, and donated our stuff and then repeated the cycle as needed. By the end, all we wanted was to go. Have it over. Move on. Vamoose.

But we had stuff and owning stuff means responsibility -- for the stuff and for the decisions about it, including what to leave and what to keep. If one is traveling for months at a time....the stuff decisions before hand can seem endless.

Beyond that, separating from one's stuff is not easy. Making the toss-keep-store decisions evoke all kinds of competing feelings. For us, the big stuff was stored in the Midwest while we lived elsewhere. It's the smaller stuff that caused issues and questionable decisions. I concerned myself with what to do with my lavender suede heels, the dried decorative sticks purchased at an outlet store, extra hiking boots, our 10 year-old ice chest from Walmart, old off-season clothing, random odd bits of our lives. I wondered where to stash them and yet at the same time wondered why these items mattered. 

We traveled from Chicago to Palm Desert, CA in our SUV packed to the roof with stuff, our bicycles hooked to the back. We looked like modern day members of the Joad family. Our stay in Palm Desert was temporary  for we had months of travel ahead of us. Everything we brought with us could not travel with us. Some of it must stay. We must separate.

Our plan was to travel for several months, first to Bend to house hunt, then to Miami, a cruise ship, Europe, another ship, countless hotels, planes, trains and many places beyond. Our portable stuff was restricted to one carry on bag, one rolling duffle, and one extraordinarily large purse or in R's case over-stuffed backpack -- each.  The airlines have weight and bag limits that we must meet. Plus we'd be toting these babies on and off trains, buses, and who knows what for a long time. They needed to be manageable. It was in Palm Desert that we realized we were attempting to take too much stuff.  While we had separated from our home, city, work, and major stuff, we hadn't fully separated from the belief that we needed much more than we really do. Letting go of such a belief proved challenging.

We repacked our bags in Palm Desert, leaving many items behind. In Bend, we repacked again, filling a tote with more stuff for storage. Throughout the months of travel, we both discarded many more items -- shoes, t-shirts, shirts, blouses, make up. We shedded our extra stuff and discovered that both of us managed nicely with what remained. It seemed we had what we needed.

Now we are packing again. You think we would have learned the lesson of just enough, right? For this current trip, both of us want to sneak just a little bit more into our duffles. Stuff one little corner of our carry ons with one more something.  Are we greedy? Hard to satisfy people?
 Perhaps.

Or is letting go of excess and only holding on to what you really need, keeping just enough, a difficult lesson to really learn?

It Is Not Just About the Dollars: Decision Making Part 2

Obviously, all of us have different ways of reaching decisions.  What we ultimately want is to land comfortably on one side of a debate -- stay or go? Travel or settle down? Delay or get moving? After much internal and external debate, I decided to take the year and transition to a new life and locale.

However, to reach the decision was for me a complicated process.  Once all the practical financial pieces were considered as well as the practical aspects of closing my practice, selling our home and all that, the real work began, the emotional work. I allowed the therapist part of my brain to contemplate the outcome of any decision.  As I visualized the future,  I imagined what it would feel like to cycle for three hours without concern about rushing to my next task, to prepare dinner in a leisurely manner, to travel longer than the typical two weeks. I also started considering my future self, envisioning who I might be in the future.  At various times, I played out different scenarios in my mind, fantasizing what staying two more years in Chicago would look like and feel like. Images of dragging myself through another polar vortex winter with its minus 15 degree temperatures came to mind as did visions of hot, humid summers. I compared those images with what it might feel like to, if the weather or routine got to me, "pick up and go" (a favorite expression of my retired husband). I imagined I would feel free.

But in all honesty, my lived experience also factored into deciding when to make the transition. Life experience is a great teacher and we are lucky if we learn lessons on the first pass. My own mother died of a sudden heart attack at age 55, never having experienced retirement freedom. That early loss was instructive. In more recent years, a beloved brother-in-law passed at age 62 with not much more than a month between diagnosis and death. A much cherished teacher, mentor, clinical consultant and friend died at age 55. We were the same age. Folks my own age were dying, slightly older family members were dying, friends and family members were suddenly challenged by serious illnesses. I understood in a deep way that life is finite, presents without guarantees, should not be taken for granted.  Life is a great teacher. I paid attention to its lessons and landed on the side of now is the time for a transition.

 

Beds -- 50+

Why am I counting the number of "gap year" beds? Good question. At first, the count was kind of a game, I guess. Something to keep me amused and interested.  But I could have counted cities visited, countries visited, cabs taken. But I selected beds.

A number of years ago, I completed a dissertation which included data collection and analysis. During the process, I came to appreciate data in a new way. Information can help us describe, understand and explain experiences. So perhaps counting beds is a way of capturing and understanding the year. My husband R has been tracking miles driven. Periodically, he reports our miles travelled (by car only -- not plane, bike, ship, train, or any other mode).  It seems we are both attempting to capture and understand our experiences via numbers.

 No matter, this is how the count began. Our bed in Chicago was old, purchased several states and moves ago. We decided it wasn't worth storing or moving west. Our plan was to dump the bed the day before moving day and sleep one night on our blow up mattress. Problem was the battery operated pump had unexpectedly died. No prob, we decided. We'll just sleep on our bedroom floor. It's carpeted! With a few quilts and all, it will be fine.  This is the kind of bad thinking that comes when people are overwhelmed from making too many decisions, have way too much to do, and have been living the stress generated by an imminent cross country move. R is 63 and I was closing in on 60 at the time. It  had been a long time since we'd slept on any floor. It was getting late and since the movers would arrive by 9:30am the next morning we snuggled down (more like lowered ourselves) to the bed/floor to sleep.

I wouldn't really describe our time on the floor as sleep.  At 2 am we were both awake, hips and backs loudly protesting their treatment. At 2:30 am we were up, drinking the first of many cups of coffee, and by 3 am R was working on packing up the car. Bed #1 is really a non-bed that launched the gap year.

We left Chicago that afternoon, unrested, sore, a little anxious, and excited. After the sleepless night on non-bed #1 any place we stayed would be a step up. That optimistic belief actually did not hold true -- unbeknownst to us, worse beds were in our future. That day in the car, I started the bed-counting-game, tracking the number on my iPhone. Traveling from the Midwest to the west took us through -- Davenport, IA, Kearney, NB, Colorado Springs, Cortez, CO, Flagstaff, AZ, Tucson, AZ and finally Palm Desert where we met up with family and friends. Seven beds. Who knew there would be so many more?

Why count beds?  At their most basic, beds represent rest, a place to sleep. I think tracking beds expresses my restlessness. More beds. More adventure. More cities, countries, experiences.  R likes to say this is our time to "pick up and go." Will the gap year cure the restlessness? Do I want it to?

Keep counting.

By the way, current count -- 53 beds.  

New Day, New Plan, New Options: When will I select a plan?

When I started to put in motion plans for this change, I was clear about two things: I wanted to travel and I would take a year off from organized, structured work.  I would embark on a gap year.  I was half way to 60 when I made this decision.

I envisioned a gap year in which I enjoyed myself and time with my husband, traveled to beautiful, interesting places, and figured out this next phase, the phase some financial advisors call "The Go-Go Years." Sounds good, doesn't it?

Travel we did, by ship, by plane, by car, by ferry, by train, by bike, by bus and by foot. All was good with travel. And we continue to travel.

Figuring out a plan for the next phase? Well, that's more of a muddle.

It seemed a part of my mind was at odds with selecting a path. Like an adolescent who can't decide on a college, a major, a girlfriend or boyfriend (take your pick) or a young adult who can't decide on a career path, job choice.......my brain and I entered the adolescent-like world of endless options, zero decisions.

"May be we should move to Puglia, Italy," I'd excitedly (or anxiously depending on one's perspective) tell my husband. "Here, read this blog about this couple who moved there."
The next day I'd have a new plan.  "Perhaps we should buy a small camper van and for the next five years, we could drive around the US." "Whataya think?"

To my brain, the options were limitless.

One day I might be ready to board a cruise ship for an extended voyage and the next I'd consider moving to a small farm, where perhaps we could raise llamas. Or pigs. Some days I came up with two quite dissimilar and even competing plans. My brain gave little consideration to the probability of any one option working out or really being what I wanted (as if I knew).  All this extra thinking yielded less focus and more disorganization. I became discombobulated, misplacing stuff, spacing out, alternating between racing about and sitting inertly for long stretches. I found the inner-workings of my brain fascinating and would have enjoyed the exploration had it not been my brain and my life.

I finally figured out that I needed to, if not enjoy the ride completely, at least accept the process. Big transitions require time to sort themselves out. Giving myself and my brain some space to take in the experience could yield a plan or perhaps plans.
Gap year lesson -- don't live with pressure; this can be a time to let life unfold.

Decisions and Decision Making


"Betwixt and between, that's how I feel. Betwixt and between."  I'm saying this to my husband as we stroll around Traverse City, Michigan following a 35 mile bike ride. It is summer, 2013.

"I don't think I've ever used that phrase. But I'm sure that's how I feel." Must be hard feeling that way he says.

"It is. I'm stuck."

I'm not literally stuck the way one might be stuck in gunk. But my decision making is stuck.  I'm constantly pondering, considering, turning over in my mind when the right time will be to leave my job and relocate west, closer to the outside activities we love such as cycling, hiking, and closer to friends, and family. Here's the question --when do you know it's time -- to retire? To semi-retire? To make a change?

Some experts might say the decision is based on achieving your number, the amount of money you'll need in retirement. But basing the decision on math alone leaves out all those messy emotional variables.

When my husband was 61 he was pushed toward retirement. Not that he wasn't ready -- he was. He was also sleep deprived and had been working full-time since age 19. Forty-two years is a long time to adhere to someone else's schedule. The company he worked for sold off the small division where he worked. His job was gone. He could have relocated out of state with the new company but since 62 was his target age for retiring, such a move did not make sense. He received some severance and unemployment benefits and the stock market took off. It worked out. But he did not make the decision to retire, the decision was made for him. Making the decision for oneself is different for the responsibility for the outcome  resides with the decider. What if I make the wrong call? And then there are all those messy, competing, unexpected feelings.

My decision making swings back and forth. One day, I'm clear that 60 is a perfectly fine age at which to take a break, make a change, move west to where we want to live.  Then bam. Back my thinking and emotional system swings to "I'm too young. I'm not ready." 
Why does this happen?
The answer is probably different for different people. My guess is that fear plays a big part.