Reflections on Spring Break, A Year Later

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It is spring break week in East Texas. Mother Nature decided to cooperate with glorious weather — crisp mornings, warm afternoons, brilliant skies, redbud trees blooming in front yards, azalea blossoms beginning to make an appearance. I’m grateful my Beautiful Mystery Companion and daughter Abbie received a respite from school, the former as a professor, the latter as a high-school freshman. We have no grand plans but will get away for a few days as a family.

For me, this week has been a time to reflect on how life has turned out, at least to this point. It seems minutes ago that we were spending last spring break preparing to sell our house in Austin and move my possessions back to Longview, all of us to live at last under one roof here. I would have to figure out how to make a living in my hometown.

After more than 40 years of having a job and a boss, I now work for myself. My standing joke is that means I am both semi-retired and self under-employed. Except I stay awfully busy for someone who no longer receives a regular paycheck. Thank goodness for pension plans and being old enough to qualify for one.

It is strange to spend most of one’s life waking up having to be at work at a certain time, and suddenly not being required to do that anymore. Now I still wake up early, walk the dog, clean up the breakfast dishes, and then begin work at home. It might be writing stories for Piney Woods Live (pineywoodslive.com and on local news stands), or editorials for a Kansas paper I once ran, pitching stories to other magazines (largely unsuccessfully), working on a book project, painting the occasional kitchen — and now, trying to pick up jobs as a licensed real estate inspector. Or, when I run out of paying work, then it is cleaning house or the yard, or tackling the latest fixing-up-the-house project. As I said, there is no shortage of projects.

The real estate inspector gig is my latest career move. I studied for months, took the online courses, and hands-on training — in truth I studied harder than I ever had to in college and passed a tough state test to become licensed as a home inspector. At 57, that required a serious brain stretch, memorizing pages of building code over hundreds of hours. There are similarities between inspecting houses and journalism. Both require the ability to observe, to pay attention to detail, to write down what you see, and then to put it into words and pictures. Inspecting is an honorable profession, helping buyers know as much as possible before making what is often their largest investment. Plus, I love to look at houses, always have. So we’ll see how that goes.  Drop me an email if you’re buying a house and need an inspection — and live in East Texas or around Austin. (Hey, I’m not above using this space to pitch my services.)

One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn over the past year is that I am not defined by my job, because for a long time that indeed is how I defined myself. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss the high-flying salad days of newspapering. But I’m grateful for the career I had, for the blessings I have received, and for what I have now — family and friends, good health, the ability to both write stories and climb into attics, make decent money at both, and to see the humor in how things have turned out. Writing is my first love, and I’m still able to do it, so there’s nothing to complain about.

I have lived through enough career topsy-turviness in the past five years to understand that circumstances might change yet again. I do my best to not worry about it. I simply enjoy each morning that the sun is shining, and Sam the dog is eager to go for a walk before I sit down to bang out another piece to make a few bucks. I cherish the time spent with my BMC out on the back deck listening to the birds. We both revel in our daughter making junior varsity cheerleader at the high school where I graduated coming up on 40 years ago. Now that’s pretty cool. We can’t wait to see her on the sidelines at the games.

It’s a pretty good life as long as you keep it in perspective. Most days I do.

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