Love this story. As a young person who just started a business and is currently in the perpetual hustle phase, I am grateful to hear about your full-circle journey. It gives me hope that I have the chance to change my life at any stage and that success and self-invention are not only reserved for 20-somethings!
Love this story so much!! It was only recently that I broke out of the notion my mind held on firmly to - I will have one career path and that's it. That I should invest as much as I can in that main skill and have my life revolve around it. I guess this is what we've been primed to see as the default work setting.
But as I discover more and more about my passions, I come up with tons of ideas which combine them in objectively weird but subjectively magical ways and I'm so excited about what's down the road! :)
Milena, I think the old way was such a generational thing, hey? We were raised thinking a great, stable job for life was the way! But then the internet didn't exist yet so we didn't know any different.
I love your posts not just for the content, but for all the amazing comments they bring out of ppl. All the adventures and pivots are so fun and interesting! I think I did it backwards. Spent the first 10 years of adulthood jumping from country to country doing whatever, to settle down and do the kids and career thing in my 30s and 40s. Still time and space for more changes of course. Yolo after all, best to make the most of it!
Thank you so much for the compliment and for sharing a little glimpse at your untraditional late-life choices. I'm here for all of it because we wouldn't be who we are without it!
All these comments seem so old but what the he**??? At 55 I sold my house in Richmond, VA; gave up my teaching job in a district outside of Richmond, hired a moving company to store some stuff and move some stuff; packed my four cats, their litter boxes, and more stuff into my RAV4 and I just set off for the Navajo Nation to take a job as a special ed teacher in Tuba City, AZ. Best decision I’ve ever made and the highlight of my teaching career. I’m retired now but those memories are priceless!
Thanks for sharing your story Bananies!!! That's amazing you did that, I bet it felt so freeing, hey?
And yes, the comments are older, this is one of my older pieces that I like to bring back from the dead once in a while. Our archives have great content getting lost in the dust lol.
I love this!! Cheers to you for veering away from convention!! I've spent much of my life on the other side of the edge (Yup, got an adventure? Call me.) with just a small tether up to the brink...so I can somehow occasionally pull myself up, over, and into the matrix for a short spell to make it all *kinda* work as an overeducated, creative adventurer who cares way more about experiences than material goods. [I'm so far gone at this point I can't fathom how people stay in the box.]
Wow. Wow. It feels AMAZING to be seen and to know that there are more souls out there making this leap to shift how "work" is in their life. I was a public school teacher and administrator in California public schools for 20 years for kiddos with special needs. In 2018, when my youngest son was almost 18, I decided to leave my successful career in education, move to Jamaica, and start a whole new life. I thought I was so unique in doing this and I'm learning that I'm actually not and I'm sooooo excited for this realization. The more people that shift from working just because they have to in jobs they don't like to working for soul fulfillment will cause a ripple effect in the collective in a much needed way. I see you, Kristi, and your writing and perspective inspires me to keep sharing and to keep living this life on my terms. Big up, soul sister! ❤️
FINALLY...another person who knows what big up means 🤣🤣 Don't be surprised if I start communicating with you in full patois lol. I miss the beauty of the dialect.
We have lived such similar lives. I also waited til my son was 18 to venture off and try a new life.
I hope it is everything you've imagined. Jamaica is not an easy place sometimes, and even more difficult for a single woman (me). I was there alone and the frustration sometimes.....I swear 😂
I would love to practice Patois with you...always learning and have a loooong ways to go in that respect.
You are soooo right that Jamaica isn't an easy place sometimes. It takes a special soul to be drawn to the island and to not only keep coming back but to choose to stay here long term. 6 months after I moved to Portland alone, I met the man who is now my husband. I honestly thought I would never get married again and we just celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. I know that living here with his love and support is a very different experience than it would have been had I decided to stay single. We've talked about it often and I honestly don't know if I would still be here as a single woman but alas, it doesn't matter what would have happened as here I am! I hope one day you plan to return here so we can meet in person...I imagine we could chat for hours!
I will 100% keep you on my radar of I choose to come back. I was never a Porty person until late in my game when I was sent out there to work with some villas. Then I realized it's just as quiet and beautiful as the south coast where I chose to spend my time.
As long as we're both on Substack we've got each other's contact!
I adore your brave sassy authentic voice! 🙏🏼 My weirdest leap after a lifetime of ledge-jumping was buying a hoarder house full of dead rats and Franzia wine boxes. Because, Covid. My partner and I sold it in September and we are now FREE as Effing Birds to do as we wish. Sadly I love him and he loves the shivvering Northwest, or I'd be singing on the beach in Costa Rica.
Thank you Kristi. I tried to document the Hoarder House clearing process on TikTok. Sadly, I could not click my phone to make videos with the same gloved hand I used to clean rat shit. 🐀 You've given me an idea to do it up on my Stack!
So glad you re-boosted this just now in Notes. I really needed this read! Once I am recovered enough from long COVID to return to work, it will definitely be a pivot of some sort. No fucking way am I going back to the stress and under-resourced life of non-profit management. Your post is so inspiring to me - thank you! And I love that you and Anthony found each other again over similar pivoting circumstances ☺️
I'm so glad to hear you've found some inspiration here Amy. You not wanting to go back was exactly how I felt about corporate hell. NO way was I going that route again.
I wish you the absolute best on your journey....fuck the old stress!! 🤣
I love this Kristi and is weirdly exactly what I needed to read right now. About to move out of London to a rural village, a Victorian cottage and who knows what’s next! I’m scared as hell but it just feels right.
You know what I love? When my posts are exactly what somebody needed to read in that moment. I also love when I read exactly what I needed at a particular moment. These are the best parts about writing.
If your move feels right, I'm with you all the way! Your cottage sounds dreamy and I have no doubt it'll be an epic move for you!
"We’ve been daughters, students, employees, wives, mothers, cooks, housekeepers, ATM machines, among an avalanche of other roles we’ve starred in at different stages."
We've been sexual ATM machines, favor ATM machines, work ATM machines, friend ATM machines, here's-a-shoulder-to-cry-on ATM machines....I could go on. There's some real truth in this analogy which spills over into why we are so damned exhausted.
So often the kick over the edge is reaching a really big decade. Mine was sixty. I"d already started adventure travel. That year, 2013, I kicked that badboy into high gear. I did Kilimanjaro, turned my butt into a serious athlete (clumsy but serious) and threw my heart into a slew of sports all over the world for the better part of ten more years. Still doing it, albeit with a stopover for body work the last many months.
If I had to offer a thought here, it's only this: we often wait too damned long before we give ourselves permission to be the badass we were meant to be. That badassery wears eight billion different faces- meaning that what's badass for you is definitely not for me (as we've established).
We can put off the life we want for decades. The life we want often requires forfeiting something, like comfort and safety.
The way I see it, worth it. Whaddya want, a life full of reasons, excuses and ultimately regrets, or seriously wonderful stories? Those stories will, as they must, include THE WORST things that have happened.
Those make the best, in retrospect, for what we discovered about our resilience, the love we bear, and the love we lost.
So great to read this today Kristi--loved everything about it! I was working in the mortgage industry for years (nightmare) when in the same week my company got bought out by a bank, I got laid off, and my dad died. Kindly my dad left me some dough so I tried setting out on my own but after three failed business partnerships I found myself working in a small natural health shop and I love it! Thanks for the validation and I can't wait to read more about your time in Jamaica!! 💜
I have this week celebrated 5 years in the world of the UK pet food industry - after 34 years doing something completely different; I exploded and crashed out, was thinking of retirement but my dog led me to a new life, even at 55 you can do anything!
Ha!! I LOVE that it was your dog who led you to new ideas and a business. Dogs deserve all the credit! I'm happy you've found a new version of yourself that brings you joy and earns you a living. 😊
Love this story. As a young person who just started a business and is currently in the perpetual hustle phase, I am grateful to hear about your full-circle journey. It gives me hope that I have the chance to change my life at any stage and that success and self-invention are not only reserved for 20-somethings!
As a mid-lifer hearing a young person say this, you make me wish I was young again to see if my story could/would change knowing what I know now 😊
You (everyone) are blessed with the gift of choice. You'll make some good and some not good and that'll become your story!
Great story! And your bravery and creativity shine abundantly.
Ps… strange … although I am subscribed, I didn’t receive this in my inbox here .. so bizarre.
Thanks Teyani, this is an old one that I just dug up and posted the link. It's not recent so you probably weren't subscribed way back then.
Love this story so much!! It was only recently that I broke out of the notion my mind held on firmly to - I will have one career path and that's it. That I should invest as much as I can in that main skill and have my life revolve around it. I guess this is what we've been primed to see as the default work setting.
But as I discover more and more about my passions, I come up with tons of ideas which combine them in objectively weird but subjectively magical ways and I'm so excited about what's down the road! :)
Milena, I think the old way was such a generational thing, hey? We were raised thinking a great, stable job for life was the way! But then the internet didn't exist yet so we didn't know any different.
I'm glad you're finding your way!
I love your posts not just for the content, but for all the amazing comments they bring out of ppl. All the adventures and pivots are so fun and interesting! I think I did it backwards. Spent the first 10 years of adulthood jumping from country to country doing whatever, to settle down and do the kids and career thing in my 30s and 40s. Still time and space for more changes of course. Yolo after all, best to make the most of it!
Shoni, thank you for saying that 😊 I really try to encourage an active community.
And I don't know if there's a backwards or forwards way to do life. It just seems tonfall the way its supposed to regardless!
Kristi, you are amazing storyteller!!
Loved reading your article - it held my attention all the way ❤️
Late life happenings my friend and I started an Event Management company in our 40's. Folded it in my 50's due to 'life happening'.
Fast forward 7 years after 'the incident' I found writing and here I am! Meeting so many wonderful people like you 🫶
Cheers to many more happy discoveries ✍️
Thank you so much for the compliment and for sharing a little glimpse at your untraditional late-life choices. I'm here for all of it because we wouldn't be who we are without it!
All these comments seem so old but what the he**??? At 55 I sold my house in Richmond, VA; gave up my teaching job in a district outside of Richmond, hired a moving company to store some stuff and move some stuff; packed my four cats, their litter boxes, and more stuff into my RAV4 and I just set off for the Navajo Nation to take a job as a special ed teacher in Tuba City, AZ. Best decision I’ve ever made and the highlight of my teaching career. I’m retired now but those memories are priceless!
Thanks for sharing your story Bananies!!! That's amazing you did that, I bet it felt so freeing, hey?
And yes, the comments are older, this is one of my older pieces that I like to bring back from the dead once in a while. Our archives have great content getting lost in the dust lol.
I love this!! Cheers to you for veering away from convention!! I've spent much of my life on the other side of the edge (Yup, got an adventure? Call me.) with just a small tether up to the brink...so I can somehow occasionally pull myself up, over, and into the matrix for a short spell to make it all *kinda* work as an overeducated, creative adventurer who cares way more about experiences than material goods. [I'm so far gone at this point I can't fathom how people stay in the box.]
I can totally relate to the "so far gone" part 😁😁
Right? At times it seems we're living in another universe.
Wow. Wow. It feels AMAZING to be seen and to know that there are more souls out there making this leap to shift how "work" is in their life. I was a public school teacher and administrator in California public schools for 20 years for kiddos with special needs. In 2018, when my youngest son was almost 18, I decided to leave my successful career in education, move to Jamaica, and start a whole new life. I thought I was so unique in doing this and I'm learning that I'm actually not and I'm sooooo excited for this realization. The more people that shift from working just because they have to in jobs they don't like to working for soul fulfillment will cause a ripple effect in the collective in a much needed way. I see you, Kristi, and your writing and perspective inspires me to keep sharing and to keep living this life on my terms. Big up, soul sister! ❤️
FINALLY...another person who knows what big up means 🤣🤣 Don't be surprised if I start communicating with you in full patois lol. I miss the beauty of the dialect.
We have lived such similar lives. I also waited til my son was 18 to venture off and try a new life.
I hope it is everything you've imagined. Jamaica is not an easy place sometimes, and even more difficult for a single woman (me). I was there alone and the frustration sometimes.....I swear 😂
I would love to practice Patois with you...always learning and have a loooong ways to go in that respect.
You are soooo right that Jamaica isn't an easy place sometimes. It takes a special soul to be drawn to the island and to not only keep coming back but to choose to stay here long term. 6 months after I moved to Portland alone, I met the man who is now my husband. I honestly thought I would never get married again and we just celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. I know that living here with his love and support is a very different experience than it would have been had I decided to stay single. We've talked about it often and I honestly don't know if I would still be here as a single woman but alas, it doesn't matter what would have happened as here I am! I hope one day you plan to return here so we can meet in person...I imagine we could chat for hours!
I will 100% keep you on my radar of I choose to come back. I was never a Porty person until late in my game when I was sent out there to work with some villas. Then I realized it's just as quiet and beautiful as the south coast where I chose to spend my time.
As long as we're both on Substack we've got each other's contact!
I’m newish to substack looking at writing as one of many pieces to my next act puzzle. Your writing makes me yearn.
Welcome! Yearning is the beginning of change! And the good thing is you couldn't be in a more supportive community here 😊
I adore your brave sassy authentic voice! 🙏🏼 My weirdest leap after a lifetime of ledge-jumping was buying a hoarder house full of dead rats and Franzia wine boxes. Because, Covid. My partner and I sold it in September and we are now FREE as Effing Birds to do as we wish. Sadly I love him and he loves the shivvering Northwest, or I'd be singing on the beach in Costa Rica.
Oh wow!!! That sounds like a story waiting to be written! Maybe it already is??
Also, I live in Alberta, Canada so I get the frozen reference...except my current ball and chain is a dog, not a man 😂😂
Thank you Kristi. I tried to document the Hoarder House clearing process on TikTok. Sadly, I could not click my phone to make videos with the same gloved hand I used to clean rat shit. 🐀 You've given me an idea to do it up on my Stack!
Your ball and chain sounds cozy up there...🧊
So glad you re-boosted this just now in Notes. I really needed this read! Once I am recovered enough from long COVID to return to work, it will definitely be a pivot of some sort. No fucking way am I going back to the stress and under-resourced life of non-profit management. Your post is so inspiring to me - thank you! And I love that you and Anthony found each other again over similar pivoting circumstances ☺️
I'm so glad to hear you've found some inspiration here Amy. You not wanting to go back was exactly how I felt about corporate hell. NO way was I going that route again.
I wish you the absolute best on your journey....fuck the old stress!! 🤣
YASSSS 🔥🔥🔥 🤣🤣🤣
I love this Kristi and is weirdly exactly what I needed to read right now. About to move out of London to a rural village, a Victorian cottage and who knows what’s next! I’m scared as hell but it just feels right.
As Jordan says, we need this autobiography pls!
You know what I love? When my posts are exactly what somebody needed to read in that moment. I also love when I read exactly what I needed at a particular moment. These are the best parts about writing.
If your move feels right, I'm with you all the way! Your cottage sounds dreamy and I have no doubt it'll be an epic move for you!
Here's my fave:
"We’ve been daughters, students, employees, wives, mothers, cooks, housekeepers, ATM machines, among an avalanche of other roles we’ve starred in at different stages."
We've been sexual ATM machines, favor ATM machines, work ATM machines, friend ATM machines, here's-a-shoulder-to-cry-on ATM machines....I could go on. There's some real truth in this analogy which spills over into why we are so damned exhausted.
So often the kick over the edge is reaching a really big decade. Mine was sixty. I"d already started adventure travel. That year, 2013, I kicked that badboy into high gear. I did Kilimanjaro, turned my butt into a serious athlete (clumsy but serious) and threw my heart into a slew of sports all over the world for the better part of ten more years. Still doing it, albeit with a stopover for body work the last many months.
If I had to offer a thought here, it's only this: we often wait too damned long before we give ourselves permission to be the badass we were meant to be. That badassery wears eight billion different faces- meaning that what's badass for you is definitely not for me (as we've established).
We can put off the life we want for decades. The life we want often requires forfeiting something, like comfort and safety.
The way I see it, worth it. Whaddya want, a life full of reasons, excuses and ultimately regrets, or seriously wonderful stories? Those stories will, as they must, include THE WORST things that have happened.
Those make the best, in retrospect, for what we discovered about our resilience, the love we bear, and the love we lost.
Worth it.
Just do it now, to paraphrase Nike.
So great to read this today Kristi--loved everything about it! I was working in the mortgage industry for years (nightmare) when in the same week my company got bought out by a bank, I got laid off, and my dad died. Kindly my dad left me some dough so I tried setting out on my own but after three failed business partnerships I found myself working in a small natural health shop and I love it! Thanks for the validation and I can't wait to read more about your time in Jamaica!! 💜
I LOVE that you work in a little shop now and I'm sorry you had to go through what you did to get there.
I could honestly see myself working in a little apothecary or some kind of shop that you'd see in a Hallmark small-town movie 😁
Thanks Kristi! Haha and it's in the small town of Rowley MA!
Such a great story!
Thanks for sharing.
I have this week celebrated 5 years in the world of the UK pet food industry - after 34 years doing something completely different; I exploded and crashed out, was thinking of retirement but my dog led me to a new life, even at 55 you can do anything!
Ha!! I LOVE that it was your dog who led you to new ideas and a business. Dogs deserve all the credit! I'm happy you've found a new version of yourself that brings you joy and earns you a living. 😊
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 to all of this!!!