(2024-10)
You’ve heard the expression that time flies when you’re having fun. I firmly believe it! It recently dawned on me that five years ago on September 1, 2019, I retired from Chevron after over 40 years. I find it hard to fathom! I can’t believe five years have passed.
I decided to look back on the last five years and to ask myself a few questions:
- What pre-conceived notions did I have about retirement?
- Was retirement what I envisioned?
- What have I missed not having a full-time paying job?
- What don’t I miss about working full time?
- What should I do differently (if anything)?
My retirement started off like many retirements – we took our family on a three-week trip to Thailand. On our outbound flight, I hit my two-million-mile mark with United. It was fitting to hit this milestone with my family, who had sacrificed so much while I traveled extensively for work.
We had a blast in Thailand and saw so many wonderful sights. The Thai people are very friendly and nice. We enjoyed many fun experiences that probably justify their own post. Stay tuned for details on the trip.
We brought two grandchildren with us on this trip. The older had just turned two and the younger was nine months old. Traveling with young children is an experience in itself!
When we returned from Thailand, we settled into our New Orleans home (and put our Houston condo on the market). My wife and I told our daughters that we would provide backup childcare. This is not your stereotypical retirement plan (or at least what the TV commercials say), but it’s what we wanted to do to support both of our daughters.
We also spent some time studying where we wanted our retirement to be based. We selected a few states outside of Louisiana to have our primary residence due to tax structures. One of these states was Tennessee. We scheduled a family vacation in Tennessee to check it out.
Right after Mardi Gras 2020, the COVID epidemic and resultant lockdowns struck. This shook our world. In May of 2020, we heard that Tennessee had started to open from the lockdown. We planned a one-week trip at an Airbnb in Gatlinburg with the family to explore the Greater Smokey Mountain Park area. We spent a week there and thoroughly loved the area. Julie and I took a trip to east Tennessee in September to look at properties. We found a property we liked and put in an offer. After a lengthy process, we closed on our place late in October.
Back to those five questions I mentioned earlier:
- Pre-conceived notions: I knew I wanted to spend more time with my family. Because I traveled so much in my job, I initially had no big desire to travel other than our family trip to Thailand. I’m sure I thought I’d be traveling more with family. I’ve been able to consult periodically, which I hadn’t planned on. That’s been a way to stay relevant in my field without taking a lot of time away from family. One big thought I had, and I’ve been able to mostly adhere to it – no more alarm clocks!
- Is retirement what I envisioned? I am spending much more time with my family. Our grandchildren have doubled from two to four. That’s been an intense joy in my life. Even though we don’t travel like TV commercials would depict, we’re happy around family. That’s more important to me. There have also been a few significant emotional events:
- My trip down the Grand Canyon (https://mrhensonllc.com/you-did-what/)
- The death of my father and the resultant work as executor of his estate (https://mrhensonllc.com/bittersweet-transition/)
- Just recently, my sister Laura died at age 69. She was so much more than a sister to me. She was a dear friend. I will post more about her in the future.
- There are a few things I have missed about having a full-time job:
- People: this is my greatest loss. I had a great team and very fun projects with good colleagues (and negotiation counterparties).
- Travel: I miss exciting places like Brazil, Panama, Singapore, the Netherlands, London, and Turkey. It was fun to visit these places, meet nice people, eat some incredible food, and see so many cool sights. Traveling business class and on expense report was awesome!
- Mental Stimulation: I rarely had a day that didn’t challenge me significantly. There were personnel issues, negotiations, logistics, and other projects that kept me on my toes.
- There are also a few things I don’t miss about working (some more than others):
- Travel: while I enjoyed the parts I mentioned earlier, I don’t miss the stress and physical strain of so much travel. One of the last years I worked I had numerous international trips (Nine to Brazil, four to Singapore, two to Europe, one to Turkey, and a handful to Panama) and a few trips to California from Texas. I don’t miss the pain of early morning wakeups to get to the airport, flight delays, flight cancellations, and sleeping in hotels all the time. A couple of times I woke up and didn’t remember where I was. Business travel sounds so romantic and adventurous, but it comes at a price. I grew quite weary.
- Meetings: while I enjoyed the social interaction with colleagues, I tired of meetings that weren’t effective.
- Corporate Bureaucracy: there is a comfort of working in a large corporation. One of the downsides is the number of hurdles and hoops to getting things done well. I had a work colleague who had the right term for this stuff – administrivia. I had not heard that term until he shared it with me. I don’t miss administrivia!
I’ve learned three lessons in my first five years of retirement:
- There’s so much more to life than work! Family is very important to me. I love my family, and I am glad I get to spend more time with them. I enjoy supporting my daughters and their families. I joke with my former Chevron colleagues that I don’t know how I found time to come into the office. My days seem to be very full and rewarding.
- Grandchildren make you feel both very young and old at the same time! It has been marvelous and great to spend so much time with my grandchildren (currently ranging from two to seven years old). I get a kick out of seeing things through their eyes. I am invigorated playing with them. At the end of the day though, I can tell the impact on my body!
- When you’re doing what you love, time does pass quickly. I’ve had so much fun the past five years. It’s a blessing to watch my grandchildren grow up. It’s also a blessing spending more time with my wife. We’ve been married more than 45 years, and that time has passed so quickly. I’m also blessed to be able to support my daughters and their families.
My bottom line – I’m glad I retired when I did. I missed the COVID pandemic and its massive change to working conditions. I’m glad I don’t have to travel and go through security so many times now! I have no regrets about retirement and can’t wait to see what the future brings.
If you are working full-time now, please take heed of my first lesson. When I was employed, I tried to “work to live” instead of “living to work” and I’m glad I did. It helped me adjust easily into retirement.
If you’d like to discuss this further, please contact me via email ([email protected]).