Odd goals and celebrating the mundane...

Béziers, France

31 July 2025

Dear Family and Friends,

Oh wow, I’m afraid it’s been so long that I’m not sure I remember how to write anymore. There has been a lot going on, and then again there’s been a fair amount of nothing going on.

At the beginning of the year, I started to spend some time reflecting on 2024. It was quite a big year for me. So many life changes that it is a little bit exhausting just to think about it. January was the big move and the beginning of a new chapter.  At the time I was thinking that maybe after a couple of months, I’ll start looking for remote work.  Well, it was sometime in the fall that I finally admitted to myself that I didn’t really want to work anymore and gee did I just retire?

Retiring at 60 was an odd dream for a young kid to have, but I can remember one summer afternoon sitting on the swing set and talking with Mary and Scotty about life, work, money, retirement, and goals. I remember thinking I wanted a purple corvette, and a house on a lake. For some reason, I thought that 60 would be a good age to retire. Admittedly, I forgot about that conversation until I was 60 and retired, but I was nonetheless impressed that I had achieved at least one of those odd goals.

Now, with hindsight being 20/20, I’m not sure that a house on a lake would be “my thing” anymore and I definitely have lost interest in owning a sports car, but I am happily retired. And now I’m in an awkward phase of finding a new rhythm of life. This has brought on some bizarre behavior that I hope will lead to an overall happy experience in this new chapter.

After I had spent all this time thinking about the many changes, and celebrated the achievement of a residence permit, a drivers license, and healthcare I decided it was time to start finding a rhythm, mainly because I thought that might add to life satisfaction. So I decided that I did NOT have to go to bed at 10:30, I could in fact go to bed at whatever time I want to. It was not long, the next morning, when Manny and Moe reminded me that I may not need to get up and go to work but I do need to get up and give them attention. And gee they let me sleep until 7:30 wasn’t that enough? It wasn’t just Manny and Moe that ended up tempering my enthusiasm for staying up late. I ended up just tired all the time. There were constantly morning things that popped up. I found myself just sleep deprived.  So I have moderated and now I try to go to bed at 11:30 instead of 10:30.

I’ve also tried changing my eating habits. I decided that I really didn’t like cooking my main meal in the evening because I tend to eat late and then I  don’t clean the dishes until the morning. This is a problem because I also don’t like waking up to a dirty kitchen.  This one I’m putting into a work in progress status, because there are definitely benefits to the main meal being midday, although in practice, I’m finding it challenging logistically.

The elephant in the room though is I have not found a time slot for writing.  Obviously, I took a break from writing this blog. I did it intentionally at first, and then I just couldn’t find a time slot that worked for me.  It’s not really about the blog for me. I started writing some fictional stories a couple of years ago and I found that I liked the way it challenged me to think about things differently and in particular it made me think about perspective and point of view in new ways. That’s the writing that I am hoping to return to and find a place for in my retirement schedule. Ultimately, I enjoy it and it keeps my brain from turning to complete  mush. And while I enjoy writing to you, I may not share that writing as freely, that writing is different.

That’s what’s been on my mind. Life in Beziers is mosly unchanged, however, now that I’ve been doing this a year, I’m enjoying being more selective about the things I do or don’t do.  There’s so much that happens, that I’m learning to let go of my FOMO and enjoy the moment I’m in. Of course, there are still plenty of challenges to living daily life in a different country while learning the language.

I try not to over celebrate when I manage a simple life administration task like make an appointment over the phone or getting maintenance done on an appliance that’s under warranty. But I must admit that I get pretty excited about some mundane things! It’s true, I also get excited when I overhear someone speaking in French and I understand some of what they are saying.

Early in June I celebrated the one-year anniversary of moving into my apartment. This also means that I fulfilled my promise to myself and I did not do anything to the apartment in the first year. I did buy furnishings and artwork and some creature comforts, but now that I have lived here a year I have decided that I will start to do a few projects.  I’m going to take it slow, but I have a better understanding of what it’s like to live here and what things might improve the experience.

I hope you are all having a good summer and enjoying the extra helpings of sunshine that come with the season.

Bonne journée!