It is a cloudy spring day. April showers bring May flowers the saying goes. Sometimes, I think that I have SAD, seasonal affective disorder. I need sunlight. The weather seems to affect my moods, thus the blog.

Today, even though I went to a breakfast with 6 other men, I feel unconnected. Could it be that we just moved to this city 6 months ago and I don’t really know these guys? Possibly.

I’m one of those that like change, but sometimes I think that change is getting the best of me. With change, it is hard to establish relationships. You see, we sold our business 16 months ago as well as our home. We moved to a new city and thus the wheels of change began to grind. Without the routine of work and staff to communicate with, life has gotten pretty quiet, too damn quiet.

Time to move again

We used to live in Colorado. After 4 1/2 years, we got to know a good number of people in the little town of Estes Park. We had to move back to Virginia due to our company being located in Virginia. We tried to run it from Colorado, but it proved to be too difficult.
It seems that after 4 to 5 years in one place, I get bored and want to move. Of course the move from Colorado to Virginia was for work reasons.
When we got married, we moved to Elizabeth City NC and renovated an old house. We lived there for 5 years, then moved to Colorado, where we lived for 4 1/2 years, then moved back to Virginia where we lived for 5 years. Now we live outside of Charlottesville VA, 3 hours away from Norfolk Virginia. We are renting due to the housing boom that is making finding or building a home almost impossible.

Semi-Retirement isn’t all it is cracked up to be

People ask how I like being retired. I tell them, “I hate it.” I thought that if I sold my business, the next new thing would pop up and I would be passionately involved in that new thing, but alas that has not happened. I’m too young to be retired! I have to do something! You see, I didn’t hate my work in general, I had just run out of ideas to grow the company and was just maintaining it. I don’t do well at “maintaining”. I’m an idea guy, I mean an off the charts idea guy. I love to invent, create and grow something. Give me a problem and I will find ways to solve it. I love troubleshooting. Work had become primarily a digital pursuit and I’m a hands on type of guy. I love collaborating with like minded people. Let’s shoot for the stars. I love big ideas, because they require big problem solving effort.

Yet another house

Tomorrow, we go back for the 3rd time to tour a house built in 1812. It needs a lot of work and is in a remote area. After 16 months of being retired, we are looking for an old historic home to renovate. Yes, the house will keep me busy, yet will that be enough? Am I making an attempt to grasp at straws, just to keep busy? I sure hope not as it is quite an investment and it’s not like I can change my mind again and pick up and move. This house is one that we will need to keep for a long, long time.

What made it easier to move from Norfolk was what Covid 19 did to our relationships. Other than family, it obliterated them. None of our peers wanted to get together for fear of contracting the virus. This made for a lonely existence not just for us, but for most of the world. As Covid eased up, most of our friends didn’t want to get together in groups. This made it easy for us to move to the mountains of Virginia. We usually visited Charlottesville several times per year. It is beautiful here. We have a beautiful view of the mountains where we are renting.

Where to go from here?

What to do and where to go is the question. Getting connected is hard to do when you move to a new area. Since Covid showed it’s ugly head, more and more people are working from home. For those that love a digital lifestyle, this isn’t bad, but for those of us that didn’t grow up that way, it has left many of us with a feeling of being disconnected.

I know that I created the last bit of being disconnected by moving. I just didn’t know that it was going to be this hard after I went into temporary retirement. I had what I considered a few big business projects on the side that I thought was going to be what I threw myself into, but unfortunately, that didn’t work out. I figured that I would be “temporarily retired” for about 6 months…. max. I could go to work for someone else, yet unless it is for a company that is into idea generation, typically I like to run my own show. The question is, which is it going to be?

Renovate an 1800’s estate?
Start a new cutting edge business?
Go work for a company that I have always wanted to work for?

Damn, this semi-retired thing is much harder than I thought it was going to be!