I'm in a state of transition. My kids are about to leave home, and for the past 20 years they have served as the axis around which our lives revolved. In preparation for the departure of our eldest (this autumn), I am trying to fill my time with pursuits and relationships that will sustain me once the kids are out of the house.
I feel good about the years that have passed. I reduced my work commitments and increased my presence at home. Our family took major trips every summer that will anchor our shared memories of this time in my kids' lives. I think my kids know me, faults and all, in a way that feels important.
I am trying to identify those elements that will enable me to thrive in coming decades.
I have a half-time position that provides the opportunity to work with and mentor incredibly talented colleagues, which provides a sense of purpose.
I am working on deepening the quality relationships with my gamer dad friends, siblings, parents / in-laws, older family members facing the major medical crises that accompany aging, and friendships earned over my lifetime that have not received the attention they deserve. I am deepening intergenerational friendships through regular meals and coffee with friends through work that have retired. I have virtual coffees with one close friend who has relocated on a consistent basis.
I maintain my health through a more disciplined diet, cycling, bodyboarding and weights. I arise early and try to be in bed early. On my days off, these pursuits provide an excuse to spend at least an hour outdoors, which is restorative and calming.
I am rekindling date night and iterating shared interests that allow my wife and I to grow together - travel, attending milestone events for those we love, and reading books that we can discuss or finding a regular show to enjoy as our common guilty pleasure.
I am looking at how to expand my options for creative expression in the coming years - trying to find a creative community that I can grow with, and to explore different media. Tied to this is a desire to find an area that I'd be interested in developing increasing mastery in. I find that the ambition that drove me earlier in my career has been supplanted by a more pure curiosity, and I look forward to letting the latter drive my decisions and commitments going forward.
I also want to reduce the amount of stuff in my life - to cull the herd. There's a sense that the greater the amount of stuff I have, the more it exerts gravity and pulls me away from the higher priorities I've identified in my life. I want to keep it to a size and strength that seems manageable - something that is underscored each time I visit an older relative consumed by their stuff and determining its disposition.
This is an overall happy moment - my oldest is excited about college, my youngest is enjoying high school and has found his tribe, and my wife (who feels each kid's hurts and triumphs twice as acutely as the kid does) is ecstatic. Both surviving parents are metastable - aging, but with enough support in place that there is no acute crisis requiring our direct involvement.
Although I am not a big spender, I no longer worry about money, and that feels like a great luxury.
I also have a sense of time affluence, which has come about through accumulated gains from years of small course-corrections and intentional decisions.
My biggest challenge is how to allocate the new abundance of time I will have as the kids take wing and I have less of a compulsion to trade time for money.