Life Reimagined

Its the 14th My 2025…I finished with Lloyds Banking Group on the 30th April, following 39 years and 290 days. Quite an innings!! BUT what on earth am I going to do next….I’m married (to Su) have 3 kids, including twins at the age of 11, have a Mortgage…so, what on earth am I going to do?

My explanation for not really having a clue, is that I feel like a young adult who has just left school and trying to work out what they want to do when they grow up, I genuinely don’t know.

I was reasonably successful with Lloyds, built a decent reputation and have a great deal of experience – mainly in the Design, Architecture and Change space, so why isn’t the door being knocked down with lucrative offers in the contract or consultancy world? Is it what I want to do in any case? What else am I good at? How on earth would I start a new career at my age? For the first time in my life I have a few £`s, what do I do with it? Its not enough to retire on, so, how much do I need to earn to supplement my Pension income? Do I even want to take my Pension early?

I thought I would breeze through this stage, I knew I had had enough in my previous job and I am pretty good at relaxing, I am quite strong willed so all this talk of feeling slightly down about not having a routine or a purpose would not impact me….BUT 2 weeks in and that exact feeling is starting to take shape. I feel quite sure if I was to do some research there is some psychological getting old curve of emotion thingy somewhere!!

Sorted the car, tidied up some outstanding paperwork, a couple of discussions with the Bank, started writing a few lists of daily chore goals, planning in my head a few visits to friends and family, attempting to motivate myself to join the Gym, could easily spend a few hours sorting the garden out, need to do less planning and more actioning for the wives upcoming 50th birthday….jeepers, it this what not having a job is doing to me!!

SO, start a blog…why? Just an opportunity to write down how I am feeling, somehow I think it will help with my motivation, if I am disciplined at writing a blog, then I will be able to track my lack of action/productivity which in turn will spur me in to shifting things from thought to action (simple right?)…but how on earth do I go about that? Little bit of research suggests wordpress will help..seems straightforward…I probably didn’t read through the instructions correctly and I now seem to have started a website!! Took me an age to work out how to even add this simple post – so, lets see how we go.

BUT it did get me thinking (again), I have lots of good friends (and family) around my age (56) and a good deal of our conversation is around growing old, finishing work, must get fitter, found this lump, have that ache, money, weddings, funerals. Friends from different backgrounds, with different jobs, differing levels of success with different likes and in different marital and financial positions. Older people are generally more tech savvy these days so having a simple easy to use website that enables support across a multitude of things to consider about, support on and collaborate against seems like a decent idea….right!?

I am at the concept stage…getting my thoughts straight on what I think the site should include, I will definitely need help through this journey, as my tech development skills are somewhat lacking, I am resisting searching the internet for sites that already exist 1) as it will quash my motivation (no doubt there are hundreds!) and 2) as I want to create thoughts on content/links etc fresh from within the space of my 2 ears, rather than be influenced by others.

Lets see how this goes, I have time on my hands, filled with enthusiasm and beyond seriously mundane stuff nothing better to do 🙂 Wish me luck!!

BTW NO AI has been used in the making of this journal entry – hence any spelling and/or grammatical errors – keeping it real!!