I’ve been thinking about retirement lately, probably because mine didn’t happen quite the way I had imagined it would.
I officially retired from federal service and the Kansas City VA Medical Center in March 2026. Between 20 years in the Air Force and my civilian federal career, I had accumulated 42 years of federal service.
You might think that after 42 years I was more than ready to walk away.
The truth is, I wasn’t.
I enjoyed my job at the Kansas City VA. I enjoyed the people I worked with, the responsibility, and knowing that the work we were doing ultimately supported veterans. I knew retirement was somewhere on the horizon, but I hadn’t really planned on March 2026 being the end of my working career.
Then life changed the plan.
In 2025, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. What followed was surgery, recovery, chemotherapy, appointments, tests, and all the uncertainty that comes with hearing the word cancer attached to your own name.
Suddenly, the question wasn’t simply, “When do I want to retire?”
It became, “What do I want the next part of my life to look like?”
That’s a very different question.
I don’t want this to sound like cancer made the decision for me, because it wasn’t quite that simple. But it certainly changed my priorities and accelerated a decision I probably would have put off longer.
Work had been part of my life for essentially my entire adulthood. I went from the Air Force into federal civilian service. There wasn’t much of a gap where I wasn’t responsible for a mission, a budget, a deadline, a problem that needed solving, or people who depended on me to get something done.
Then, in March, that stopped.
There’s something strange about reaching a point you’ve spent decades working toward and realizing you didn’t arrive there by the road you expected.
And the truth is, I’m still trying to figure out what retired life looks like for me.
I don’t think I’m someone who is going to be satisfied simply sitting at home and calling that retirement. I’m exploring volunteer opportunities and looking for ways to stay involved and useful. At the same time, I’m learning that I don’t necessarily need another full-time schedule just to give my days a purpose.
I’m fishing more when I get the chance. I have a great group of fellow military retirees that I try to bowl with periodically.
Some mornings I’ll meet up with a group of longtime local residents, the “townies,” at McDonald’s. I’ve learned quite a bit of local history and lore sitting around that table. We talk about what’s happening around town, what’s going on in the world, and, like most groups gathered around a McDonald’s table in the morning, occasionally solve problems that apparently continue to stump people in Washington.
Laurie and I are traveling more. I’m spending more time with family and my granddaughter. There are projects around the house, places I want to see, fish I haven’t caught yet, and apparently enough random thoughts bouncing around in my head that I decided the internet needed another blog.
None of that sounds particularly profound, but maybe that’s something I’m beginning to understand about retirement.
After 42 years of having a job help define my schedule, responsibilities, and even part of my identity, maybe I don’t need to immediately replace it with something else.
Maybe retirement is partly about giving myself permission to figure it out as I go.
There’s another part of retirement I’m still learning to navigate: my limitations aren’t quite what they used to be.
Lung surgery changed some things. I don’t have the same breathing capacity or stamina I had before, and I’m still learning where those new limits are. Sometimes I find them because I’m smart enough to recognize them. Other times I find them because I wasn’t smart enough to recognize them until my body pointed them out for me.
Then there’s the accumulated wear and tear from 20 years in the military. When you’re younger, you don’t spend much time thinking about what years of physical work, climbing around aircraft, lifting things, long hours, and everything else that comes with military life might feel like decades later.
Apparently, the body keeps better records than the personnel office does.
That’s been another adjustment. Retirement gives me more time to fish, travel, work on projects, and do the things I enjoy, but I’m also learning that having more time to do something doesn’t necessarily mean my body received the same retirement memo.
I’m not interested in sitting on the sidelines, though. I’m learning to adjust, slow down when I need to, and figure out different ways of doing some things. Maybe that’s another part of retirement nobody puts in the brochure: learning the difference between “I can’t do that anymore” and “I can’t do that the same way I used to.”
That’s a distinction I’m still working on.
The lung cancer diagnosis and everything that followed certainly changed my timeline. Surgery, treatment, appointments, and recovery have also reminded me that time isn’t something we’re guaranteed an unlimited supply of.
I wouldn’t recommend cancer as a retirement-planning strategy. There are probably easier ways to decide it’s time to slow down.
But it does have a way of changing how you think about the time you have.
I miss parts of working. I miss the people, the responsibility, and the satisfaction of knowing I accomplished something. I was fortunate to finish my career at the Kansas City VA doing work I enjoyed and supporting a mission that meant something to me.
On the other hand, I’m beginning to appreciate waking up on what everyone else still calls a workday and realizing I don’t necessarily have anywhere I’m supposed to be.
That’s taking some getting used to.
Maybe I’ll go fishing.
Maybe I’ll go bowling with the guys.
Maybe I’ll have coffee with the townies and learn another piece of local lore.
Maybe Laurie and I will start planning another trip.
Or maybe I’ll sit around doing absolutely nothing productive and remind myself that, after 42 years of federal service, I have apparently earned the right to occasionally accomplish nothing.
Of course, something will probably catch my attention, I’ll start researching it, and three hours later I’ll wonder what happened to my morning.
Hence the name of this blog.
I’m still figuring retirement out. And maybe, for now, that’s exactly what retirement is supposed to look like.
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