We spent the night holding hands and just staring at each other…actually, it was more like clinging to each other. After the initial shock of being laid off, we spent a couple of days in a quiet, fuzzy haze. And THEN we cracked open a bottle of wine…Time to get serious about this.
Initially, of course, it was “whatarewegonnadowhatarewegonnadowhatarewegonnado????” Gulp, breathe. Then the voices just said, “HOLD IT! WE ARE NOT GONNA STARVE TOMORROW!” And then we intentionally made the decision not to act from a position of panic! In the past 30 years, we had made one or two really good decisions – not the least of which was to have an emergency savings in place (but that’s an entirely different post.) My point is that we would be able to make the mortgage at least for a couple of months, providing we did not do anything stupid. So we sat on our patio, drinking wine, and pondering the question…
“Where do we go from here?”
What if you had the chance for a do-over? Would you do the same thing again? Are there things in life that you have always wanted to try, but didn’t have the time/opportunity/guts to just go for it? What would it take to start over – An Encore, so to speak…?
I know there are lots of baby boomers out there who are in the same, or nearly the same situation. Can’t wait to hear about your choices!
An Encore Voyage 
I started over.
My encore started a little less voluntarily, but I made the decision to continue down the path. I started doing my own stuff – a little freelance here, a little contracting/consulting there, a little business, all to give me the freedom to write what I love – and I plan to ride that train until the wheels fall off. haha. I just published a book and have a couple others in the works.
Sometimes, the second act is better than the first.
If I have a regret, it’s that I didn’t figure this out a lot sooner.
http://runwright.net
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Oh my gosh, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this! And you are sooooo young (comparatively speaking!) Jeremy and I are always saying, “Oh, to have known then what we know now.” But now our motto is, “You know you are on the right track when you become disinterested in looking back!” So many times we wish now that we had started earlier! We’re having more fun now than we ever had working for someone else! You’ve got this, sister!
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Thanks so much, Lynn.
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I thought about the concept of regret quite a bit this past year. Did I regret any of the choices I made? It’s another way of thinking about would you do it different, if you could do it over. But I realized those choices ended me right here. And right here is pretty good. If I changed one of those choices, would I have the love of my life (my soul mate) in my life? Would I be retired early, financially sound, and able to make so many choices about what to do next? So, if I had the chance to do it over, I hope I would do the same damn thing.
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