This is another in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on retirement.

Life is a journey of discovery. I’ve known it for a very long time. Until one’s professional life ends abruptly — and not entirely the way one envisions it — then you learn fully about the discovery that awaits.

Such is what is happening to me now.

I just turned 64 years of age. I’ve embarked along several paths here and there since the late summer of 2012. A few of the paths have taken me down blind alleys. I’ve detoured a bit and moved on to other things.

But I think I’m hitting my stride at my relatively advanced age and I’ve learned that life does exist after one has the plug pulled on what had been a fruitful, exciting, fulfilling and — I hope– successful career.

I spent roughly 37 years in daily journalism, working at four newspapers in two states. I moved up the rungs as my experience grew. I hit a few bumps along the way, as we all do in life. I learned from mistakes, vowed never to repeat them — which, of course, didn’t always prevent me from making new mistakes. What a ride it was, allowing me to travel and to cover some of the most compelling people and events imaginable.

Then it ended. A company “reorganization” resulted in my resigning from a job that my employer said should go to someone else. One word described my feelings at the moment I learned my fate: devastated.

I packed up my office and left. I mourned the loss of my career. I had wanted to go out on my own terms. I’d hoped for a party, a toast or two, a few laughs around a big cake. It didn’t happen that way.

That was about 17 months ago. You know what I’ve learned? It is that I can continue to contribute to my community’s thought process. This blog is one vehicle. I spend considerable time each day spewing out thoughts and opinions on all manner of issues. I get smacked around by those who disagree with me and occasionally I get kudos from those of like minds. It keeps my head in the game.

About seven months ago I started working as a customer service concierge for a Toyota dealership in Amarillo. This job, too, enables me to employ another skill I’ve possessed for most of my life: an ability to speak to strangers. I greet customers at the dealership and seek to make them feel comfortable while they wait for their vehicle to be serviced. I’m successful most of the time.

But prior to the concierge gig, I got hired by the local public TV station in Amarillo as a public affairs programming blogger. “A Public View with John Kanelis” has been an absolute blast to write. My bosses at Panhandle PBS invited me to join them in October 2012 and the blog has enabled me to stay current on what public TV is broadcasting to our Panhandle viewing audience.

I haven’t made any new discoveries about myself now that I’m well into semi-retirement. Instead, I’ve been able to reaffirm what I learned when my wife and I packed up our then-young sons and moved from Oregon to Beaumont, Texas nearly three decades ago. It is that I am an adaptable creature, far more than I thought I was when we left those familiar surroundings in the Pacific Northwest for a decidedly unfamiliar environment — in every possible context — on the Texas Gulf Coast.

We adapted and changed and have carved out a nice life all along our Texas journey.

It’s taking a new turn and we’re looking forward more than ever to the future. The past is what it is. The future is exciting because we don’t yet know what we’ll discover.

We’ll be ready for whatever awaits.