I find myself at another crossroad. So many roads, so many paths – no sense of direction.

When I started my career I worked for a bank. Then I started working in a public accounting office preparing month end statements and ensuring my clients didn’t run afoul of the government.

This lead to pursuing an accounting designation and with that, increasing work responsibilities. I became involved in my local chapter of my professional association – met good people some of whom became good friends. Had fun. Learned lots.

I served on the provincial and national board of directors for my professional association. More good people, good friends and fun. Kept learning. Honed my skills as a speaker.

I was downsized from an accounting firm and started my own practice. Made use of all the same skills and got better at organization and discipline.

Then I started teaching.  I fell in love with the challenge and the students. Each day was different with just enough similarity to make me believe I was getting good at it.

I gave up my accounting / tax practice which was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But there is only so much time.

Somewhere, during all of the above, I authored some articles, prepared and presented workshops, wrote wee books on grassroots governance and on ethics. I served on a couple of other local boards and provincial committees.

And then I retired.

It got quiet.

I wanted to spend one year in retirement mode – to allow myself time to adjust – to see what I would do when I didn’t have stuff to do. I didn’t last. I accepted a six month contract for some writing. I agreed to teach one day a week for six months.

As a result, I still don’t know what I want to do. I miss social interaction but have no desire to find a real job. I am not a “joiner” so have not looked into social clubs – but I might.

I miss a certain amount of structure. I have always liked deadlines and the freedom to accomplish a task within those boundaries. But so far I don’t seem to have much luck imposing structure on myself. I tried. I was going to blog once a week but you can see how that worked out. I have half a dozen unfinished projects – self started, self directed with self imposed deadlines. But that doesn’t work. What is going to happen if I miss the deadline? I know I will forgive myself because I am so delightful. When there is a real deadline I have to finish the project – I have to let it go, even if it is not perfect. But on my own, I keep reworking and tweaking until I lose interest.

I would like to do something meaningful – but I have no idea what that would look like.

And then I realized that there are lots of people who feel this way. Some people retire and jump into a hobby or volunteer tasks that they previously could not spend enough time on. Some do that because they love it – but some do that because they too don’t know what comes next.

So – I think I will find a way to reach out to other people who are wondering what the next chapter will look like. If nothing else we can have some fun, meet new people and maybe inspire each other to take the risk and accept the challenge of something brand new.