Remaining Open
Six months ago, on February 11, 2026, I retired.
I had spent 42 years waking up with a job to go to. There was a built-in structure to my days. Get up. Get ready. Go to work. Do the work. Come home. Repeat.
Then suddenly, that structure was gone.
I knew the mornings would be easy. Exercise has always been a big part of my life, and I knew I’d keep that going. The afternoons were another story.
What the hell am I supposed to do with all these hours?
At first, that was hard. But slowly, I’ve learned that every afternoon doesn’t have to be filled with something productive. I can work on a little hobby, take care of a few things, read a book, or just let the afternoon unfold.
That’s been one of the lessons of these first 180 days:
My day doesn’t have to produce something to have value.
For most of my adult life, work provided the structure of my days. When that disappeared, I realized I needed to create some structure of my own.
That’s one reason I rejoined Men and Women of Discomfort, or MWOD.
I originally joined in 2022 but drifted away toward the end of that year. After retiring, I realized I wanted that structure back.
MWOD is much more than an accountability group. It’s a mindset, an operating system for how to live your life. It gives me something to lean into, challenges me to keep growing, and helps me stay intentional about how I live.
A few days after I retired, I received an email from the ManKind Project about creating a Circle of Men.
I took it as a little nudge from the universe.
I have a lot of women friends, but I realized it was time to find my posse—to create my own circle of men who could support one another, challenge one another, and simply be there for each other.
That became the North Star Brotherhood.
It’s another piece of the foundation I’ve been creating in this new chapter of my life.
I also realized that online connection wasn’t enough.
I participate in a lot of groups online, but I needed to be around people face-to-face. So I started checking out Meetup hiking groups.
Eventually, I found a Meetup hiking group that I now hike with about once a week.
The first few times, I felt a little like an outsider. It seemed a little clicky. Looking back, it was probably more in my head than reality. After four or five hikes, I started feeling like I was earning my stripes.
That’s one of the things you discover when you’re 60 and putting yourself out there to meet new people: sometimes the hardest part is the story you tell yourself before you even give people a chance.
Exercise is huge in my life.
I’ve learned over the years that exercise is my antidepressant. I know myself well enough to know that if I stop moving, the dragon starts creeping back in.
So I stay on top of it.
I have a pretty planned-out exercise routine during the week. I do the Manitou Incline a couple of times a month, hike, ruck with Alice, mountain bike a couple of times a month, and lift weights.
I enjoy having different activities that work different parts of my body and different parts of me.
Some are hard. Some are fun. Some are simply a reason to get outside.
Together, they give my week rhythm, and that rhythm matters.
Financially, retirement is going well.
But I’ve learned that having a financial plan is only half the battle. The other half is the person making the decisions.
My original plan was simple: for the first couple of years, live off my pensions and leave my investments alone so they can continue to grow.
Then I got the urge to buy a newer vehicle.
It was tempting. I could make the numbers work. But I also knew it wasn’t the plan.
So I stopped myself.
It wasn’t really about whether I could afford the vehicle. It was about whether buying it was consistent with the life I’d decided I wanted to live.
I don’t like debt. I’ve carried it before, and I’m not interested in doing that again.
So I got my head back in the game and stuck with the plan.
Retirement requires discipline, too. Maybe even more, because now there isn’t a paycheck coming every couple of weeks to reset the scoreboard.
There are a lot of unknowns circling overhead.
What will the next year look like? What will I discover about myself? What new people will come into my life? Where will I be living? How can I contribute to society now? What can I give back to others?
I don’t have answers to all of those questions.
And maybe I don’t need to.
I’m learning to remain open—to new experiences, new people, new directions, and parts of myself that didn’t have much room to show up before. After all, I’m in the youth of my retirement.
Maybe that’s part of what retirement really is—not having all the answers, but finally having the time and freedom to explore the questions.
And maybe it’s also about letting go of the fear of being fully myself. After years of doing what was expected, I want to live more genuinely.
Some people may like it. Some may not.
I’m getting okay with that.
-Dwight
More on Retirement – Retirement: 50 Days In
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