Coming Out

It wasn’t easy but Bob and I have finally come out.  We are bloggers.  Our first post was March 6, 2015, which also happened to be our 34^th wedding anniversary. This post is our 44^th post in eight months.  How did we get here? 

Well, we are blaming it on our daughter.  Yes, it’s all Amy’s fault.  She sent us a link to a blog she thought we’d enjoy.  Amy’s words (I’ve kept the text) were that she could "see us doing this."  The blog she directed us to is wonderful.  Check it out!  Senior Nomads In Europe can be found at seniornomads.blogspot.com .  Michael and Debbie Campbell are from Seattle.  They sold everything and began traveling all over Europe and blogging about it.  They primarily stay at Airbnb accommodations (airbnb.com/) and those experiences provided a theme for their blog; they are well into their second year of full time travel and blogging.  The Seattle Times newspaper featured an article on the Senior Nomads, which is what Amy read and suggested we could also do.  We thought she meant blogging . . . she was actually suggesting we sell everything and travel the world.  Amy may have had some hidden motives!

Our lovely daughter, Amy

In early March we were less than two months away from retirement, or to be specific, Bob was retiring.  We knew it was going to be a major transition, and maybe others would appreciate our challenges.  We had four major trips planned and wanted some way to combine our photos with our experiences.  Blogging seemed to be a good fit.  Until this week we hadn’t shared it with anyone other than our four adult “kids”, Amy & Mike, Shane & Alex.  They seemed to enjoy it and encouraged us to continue writing and taking photos.

But now we are out.  Coming out is an interesting term, isn’t it?  In higher social circles “coming out” usually refers to parties where young women are considered of age to be a part of society, or in the Victorian era, eligible to marry.  The girls, considered debutantes, are literally making their entrance into society.  In modern times (1960’s) I guess the equivalent is going to prom . . . something I did and most of my friends did . . . and fifty years later we are retiring.

   

Today, the phrase “coming out” is generally used as a self-disclosure of sexual orientation, primarily within the LGBT community. As parents we’ve been on the other side of that conversation and know that love for a child means unconditional love. 

Shane & Alex

For Bob and I, coming out as bloggers means we have publicly shared with family and friends an activity that has consumed many, many hours over the last seven months.  I really don’t know why we have been hesitant about sharing the blog.  The whole idea was to share it.  But for some reason, coming out and saying “we have a blog” was intimidating.  Maybe we don’t really like to call attention to ourselves.  Maybe we felt we didn’t have anything unique to share.  Maybe we felt that everybody and their mother have a blog . . . and now Amy & Shane’s mother and father do have a blog!  Regardless, it was a big step for us.

But I think we know we have something to offer, if only because we know most of our friends are experiencing many of the same things but we just aren’t talking about it.  We all talk about the fun things we do, the trips we are planning, and the visits with family and grandkids.  By the way, Shane just told us that all of our grandkids “are furry.”  We don’t have grandkids but have three fun grand dogs and a grand kitty.

Aiden & Ellie, double trouble

Phoebe, ever watchful kitty

Miss Daisy making herself comfy!

Regardless, we feel as if our retired friends aren’t talking much about the challenges of transitioning into retirement.  Fortunately I have a couple friends who did tell me it was going to be challenging to have Bob home all the time . . . we might not want to share the sandbox.  We decided to put it all out there . . . our “new normal” as Bob calls it.  Many of this summer’s posts have been about our travels but the blog’s intent is to be more than a travelogue.  There are all kinds of issues and concerns newly retired folks share and we want to touch on those as well, or at least share our experiences with daily retired life.  Several of the earlier posts do just that.

There are lots of “how to blog” books and articles and websites out there to use as tools.  

Resources

We just sort of jumped in.  I’d heard of blogger.com and went to that site.  The platform was relatively easy to figure out but there are all sorts of “add-on” features we haven’t tackled.  I’ve learned quite a bit from reading the FAQ and “help” sections of the website.  Somewhere along the line we realized blogger.com is owned by Google, so we could do more developing searches and interest.  Our tech savvy son, Shane, came over for Bob’s birthday and gave us a lesson on connecting to Instagram to post photos and develop a following. instagram.com/ourretirementinsight/ Instagram is owned by Facebook so it was only natural to create a FB page for the website blog. facebook.com/Our-Retirement-InSight The readership has jumped tremendously since doing those two simple things.  There’s a lot more to learn though, and we aren’t sure where we want to take the blog.  We’ll just take it slow for now.

But in the meantime, we appreciate all who have read the blog and given the FB page a “thumbs up” and the following on Instagram.  This particular blog post isn’t the most photo worthy but it’s a huge step for us to have acknowledged our “coming out.”  It’s one thing to have been doing it for eight months and only have a handful of people know; it’s another to let our extended family and friends know.  Thanks for your support, and welcome to our journey!