{"id":44016,"date":"2020-08-16T00:57:19","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T00:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=44016"},"modified":"2020-08-16T00:57:19","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T00:57:19","slug":"happy-trails-part-185-comfy-in-my-own-skin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=44016","title":{"rendered":"Happy Trails, Part 185: Comfy in my own skin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=retirement%20%23journalismcareer&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Retirement.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-14337\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Retirement-300x173.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"173\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Retirement-300x173.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Retirement-768x442.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Retirement-1024x590.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The farther my wife and I travel down the road on our retirement journey, the more comfortable I become in my own skin.<\/p>\n<p>I never felt discomfort in who I am, or what I did for a living. I was a proud practitioner of my craft as a print journalist. I believe I enjoyed some modest success along a 37-year ride through four newspapers in two states.<\/p>\n<p>It ended less than happily nearly eight years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Retirement was thrust upon my wife and me. What I find interesting now that I have traveled down the retirement road is my total comfort in going about my business each day as a retired individual.<\/p>\n<p>There actually was a time not long after I retired that I felt a bit strange telling strangers that I am retired. I say &#8220;strange&#8221; only because I had been a working guy since I was 16 years of age. So, the word &#8220;retired&#8221; didn&#8217;t flow out of my mouth with quite the comfort it does today, at this moment in my life.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear, I am working part time &#8230; <em>on my own terms<\/em> as a freelance reporter for a weekly newspaper in Collin County. It&#8217;s a blast, man. I get to cover a city council and write the occasional feature story to which I get get assigned by my bosses. The gig keeps me fresh and keeps me enjoying a part of the career I cherished pursuing.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it&#8217;s a natural progression for those who move from working life to retired life. Given that I have no prior experience, I only can offer conjecture to what I am experiencing.<\/p>\n<p>To be frank, I rather like the feel of my own skin these days.<\/p>\n<p>Retirement feels more right than ever.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=retirement%20%23journalismcareer&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The farther my wife and I travel down the road on our retirement journey, the more comfortable I become in my own skin. I never felt discomfort in who I am, or what I did for a living. I was a proud practitioner of my craft as a print journalist. I believe I enjoyed some &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=44016\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Happy Trails, Part 185: Comfy in my own skin<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3920],"class_list":["post-44016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-retirement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44017,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44016\/revisions\/44017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}