I officially retired in July. My wife and I had a regular educator’s summer off, then I got busy. First it was Everest The Crunch, then 12 days away for Tofino and the West Coast Trail. Then it was 8 days at home, getting my house back in order after a renovation. Then I just completed 23 beautiful fall days in Ontario including 10 stops and driving over 2,000km.

In other words, I’ve been retired for over three months and I don’t have a clue what a typical retirement day will look like? That starts tomorrow when I head to the gym and get back into a daily routine with things like writing in the morning rather than before I head to bed. Regardless, I think it’s going to be December before I figure everything out.. and even then I’ll probably tweak my schedule well into the new year.

That said, I do need to figure out some good routines. I know myself well enough that if I don’t have routines and systems in place, I can be very unproductive and ultimately unhappy. My extended summer was absolutely wonderful, it also wasn’t sustainable. It’s time to tune back into life at home, and figure out this next year of retirement before my wife joins me.

I’m excited to start this new phase of my life. I don’t have everything figured out yet, but I have a good outline mapped out, I’m willing to experiment, make mistakes, and learn as I go. I’ve already given myself far more grace than I have in the past, so things are already going in the right direction. The big question is, am I going to enjoy the things I think I am going to enjoy or not? I hope so, but I won’t know until I try.