“WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO RETIRE AND MOVE BACK HOME?”
Don’t Retire, Refire!
“When are you going to retire and move back home?”
Every time I return to Alabama, friends and family ask me this question. Within that query are two assumptions. One is “I plan to retire” and two, “I want to move back home, specifically to Small Town, Alabama.” I’ll dispense with that second assumption before going into more detail about the first.
An important question for me is, “Where is home?” Is home the small town of 4,000 people where I grew up and lived for 19 years? After moving away to university, I never lived there again. Is home the state of Alabama where I resided until I was 33 years old? Is home even the United States? I left America in 1985 thinking I was visiting Japan for 3 weeks and moving on to New Delhi, India to live and work. After 5 trips to the Indian Embassy in Tokyo I was denied a visa to live in India and realized I was stranded on a rock in the Pacific, although a rather large rock named Honshu (the main island of Japan). I have now lived over 34 years in Japan. Is home where I have lived over half my life? If so, then I am home.
While I still enjoy visiting what few family and friends I have left in that small town in Alabama, I have no interest in returning there to settle down. I’ve lived the past 31 years in a…
