Seven months in and no regrets at age 55. It does take some getting used to, however. I’ve also noticed that my ER Forum posts are longer, so apologies. [emoji41]
We spent a couple of winter months down south this year, including visits with my two longest friends, both now highly successful and “self-made”, with kids in private schools, big homes and new Mercedes. Of course, they are naturally benchmarks for my life, since we’ve known each other since childhood, when we delivered pizzas or shagged golf balls for extra money. Even though I never had a career path with their kind of high income potential I, however, chose a path back in my twenties to buy my freedom ASAP, while they have no plans to retire. We have Japanese cars and an old bungalow that we do a lot of hands on work to. Different strokes for different folks.
One friend bought a spec house for his family last year, which came with a beautiful wine cellar. My friend bought probably 200 random bottles simply to fill it up and said to me that he knows nothing about wine and (as a busy attorney) said he likely would never dedicate time to learn. I replied that I did love it, have been studying it and would be glad to help him spend and drink his wine budget. I mentioned that we are going to Bordeaux with some friends this fall, if Covid allows. I said he would really enjoy taking his wife to Sonoma sometime but I could tell it didn’t even register with him as a possibility. They only visit Miami and St. Barts. Nowhere else holds any interest.
A few years ago, I did manage to get my other friend to park his IT business long enough to visit the Turks and Caicos with me for some bone fishing, which he genuinely loved.
I’m still settling in to this new life but this long, relaxed trip home has confirmed that I’ve made the much richer decision — FOR ME.
