Preface, nothing against those that do.
Its increasingly difficult to ever do fun things with my current friends. Now that I’m to the point where I have the space and the money and time to do pretty much anything I want, no one else has any time to hang out. I get ignored a lot, which I get, they care about their family more. But I’m the type of person who likes to host stuff and do things.
Not a huge deal to me, I’m fine being alone, but its like, man, its really fun hanging out and playing some IRL video games or just cruising or walking around outdoors etc. I guess nobody really has time as they get old though. Or maybe I need to find a younger crowd 😆 I have no idea.
I spent 20 years traveling the world and living abroad with the US military. I’ve explored most of Europe, Asia, a little of Africa, and a brief visit to the Middle East (that last one was not fun travel), and as much as I enjoyed it, I realized I was starting to miss my hometown.
My hometown is nearby to a massive US city, so most people here just move to the city. Or get their college education there and then move on to another large metropolitan area in the US. My hometown is a beautiful place to settle down, but most people my age aren’t ready for that yet. Hence why all of my friends have left town.
My wife and I still have plans to travel, but we’re waiting for our elderly dog to finally pass away. He gets stressed with us just being gone for a day, so leaving him in a kennel while we go on vacation might kill him.
We paid for an expensive kennel where he got his own “suite” with a soft bed, tons of toys, TV playing doggy films all day, and multiple one-on-one play sessions with employees outdoors, and he still lost 5 lbs from stress in a week! And it’s a place he’s familiar with; we used to send him and our other dog there before she passed away. Since losing his partner, he just can’t handle being away from my wife and I for extended stretches of time. He’s extremely needy and anxious.
So one day we’ll get back out and revisit some of the wonderful places we lived abroad again. But for now, we’re just enjoying the quiet life back home.
The military was stressful for us, always having to be somewhere, accomplishing something, and adhering to a strict schedule. Our personal lives were always secondary to our jobs and you couldn’t just quit. You were locked into a multi-year contract that could only be broken by doing something illegal and going to jail. So having the freedom to plan my own schedule and do whatever I want with my life is kind of nice.