I think that it may have been an ideas day. I was too preoccupied to notice. I used to be more attentive. What has happened? My guess is that I took on a job that I’m no longer qualified to do. It is quite strange – I’m tending to details as they arise. I am doing this because, finally, I’m an adult. I held off for as long as I could and remained a child for a remarkably long time.

People now ask me, when did you retire? This to me is a question that intimates that I am old. No one asks anyone that they think is under 65 this question. My response, and there is a grain of truth to this – is that I retired when I was 14. I remember the day. My mother had called my high school and told them to move me back into college prep classes. I’d been moved into career classes because I’d done poorly in math and Latin.

Alys at Science of Reading conference

I had finally accepted the fact that I was to remain in the classes I was in, and in fact was enjoying coming across as the smartest person in this particular classes. The day after the phone call, the guidance counselor called me into her office and told me this news. I did not tell her that my mother did this at a time when she’d drank too much. Rather, I said this was good news.

I also didn’t tell her that my mother, sister, and I were living in a cluttered one-bedroom apartment.

That day, I realized that if I didn’t buckle down and do my schoolwork, I’d literally and figuratively get nowhere in life. Nowhere would entail working at a 9-5 job say at Eastman Kodak, working the day shift in the dark room, like my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Mack. So I began studying hard, and doing my homework. And I did just fine once I was moved back into the college prep program.

And so, in a manner of speaking, I retired on that day. From then on in, I eschewed any and all conventional jobs, that is those in which I’d have to be in the same place, day after day, and do the same tasks over and over.

I became over educated, this being a means to an end. I worked as a journalist and as a teacher. I could not get hired to write features. And I could not find a teaching job that allowed me time to write. So I followed Pete to Alaska, and put many years into exploring the horse and human mind/body relationship.

The book project – well, here I am supposedly (or at least some think) coming out of retirement in order to work full time. This is why, when asked, I say that I retired at age 14. And I have proof of this. I am not going to get much in the way of Social Security.

Has it been a good life? Your guess (and it is a guess) is as good as mine.

Next: 65. 3/6/25: Looking for the Good