Good morning and welcome to Crossing50! I’m glad you’re here.

I’m writing this on 25 November 2017, in my kitchen, in my pajamas, with a cup of coffee filled with Starbuck’s Italian Roast and Hershey’s International Chocolate creamer. It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving, 2017. I have so much to be thankful for yet, with the impending launch of Crossing50, there is so much adventure left to have.

I’m 4-months before my 49^th birthday. I’ve been living in Ohio for longer than anywhere else except my boyhood home in Rochester, New York. Unlike many of my contemporaries, my children have struck out on there own, gotten married and are working to build lives and families of there own. I’m very thankful we continue to be a close family, although each of our individual family units is fiercely independent.

This weekend we’re also blessed to have my father visiting as well as the always-present Father-in-Law. I say this because Miguel, at 90 years old, lives with us and has for over three years. To our credit he is in great health and superior care from what he had before we moved him from Seattle. For his part, my Dad, who is approaching 80 is still pretty independent, traveling the country by car and train while interspersing domestic trips with international excursions.

Ohio became home following an Air Force officer career of just over twenty years.  Like many of my peer group in the area, Dayton Ohio, near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, was a natural landing strip to finish raising families and to start next chapters in our lives and careers with a good cost of living, follow-on career opportunities, and good schools for kids.

Since my retirement from active duty I have been working for a government support contractor performing many of the same tasks I did when serving as a program manager and systems engineer in the Air Force.  The big difference is I’m acting in an advisory and consultant role with no real responsibility for making decisions. It’s not as bad as the movie Office Space, but it does have similar themes.

My wife and I live in a nice suburban community in a home we built after moving from the rabbit warren of Washington D.C..  My wife is amazing! Besides putting up with me for over 20 years, raising a terrific family, moving where and when the Air Force told us, she’s been able to have a fascinating career in nursing and education.  Currently, she is working hard on her Doctorate of Nursing Practice while contributing remotely from home for a nationally recognized nursing organization and caring for her father.  She is simply a treasure to so many and I am blessed to have her in my life.

This brings me to the impetus for starting Crossing50.  When we got married, I promised my wife she could choose where we settled down and put down roots following our days in the Air Force.  Due to a number of reasons, that transition has been delayed; caring for Miguel, finding the right place to go, and other commitments.  Last year, after two years of searching across New Mexico, a state we fell in love with when we were stationed there, we acquired our future home.  The catch? There are few local career opportunities for professionals with my resume, a rugged, outdoor lifestyle and a wide array of cultures.  The transition to this new location, and with it, a new lifestyle and life challenges, will most likely take place in the summer of 2019.  It just so happens, 2019 is the year I will be Crossing50.

Through Crossing50 you will share in my journey across this great divide.  My hope is it will bring you inspiration and information useful to your own journey and transitions in life.  I’ll touch on professional, recreational, health and other topics from the mid-life point of view.  Don’t get me wrong; this is not about what has been termed a mid-life crisis. I don’t feel a crisis setting in. Crossing50 is about the dawn of a second life, enabled by the first, inspired by others —  including you! I look forward to sharing the journey.

Steve

(Note — The was actually posted on 10 March 2018.  I turned 49 three days ago.  I refer you to the delays comment in the text above.  No more delays.  It’s time to get moving!)