On Wednesday, September 19, 1990, I finally got the phone call I’d been waiting on: I was offered a job in a small syndication-related division of Turner Broadcasting Services in CNN Center in downtown Atlanta. I’d been interviewing for the position for a couple months, driving down from my parents house in South Carolina each time. I was asked at one point in the interview if I would submit to a drug test – This was a completely new concept at the time. (They never followed up on the drug test.) I was also told I would have my own computer, but I would have to share the dot matrix printer with the rest of the team – This was 1990, remember, so personal computers at the office were still rather novel. But I remember the date very well because just the day before this was the big news out of Atlanta:
Copied from The Saporta Report.
So much has changed in Atlanta in the last 33 years. The lead up to the 1996 Olympics was exciting – So many construction projects all over the area, exciting details unfolding daily, and watching the plans finally fall into place. Then the Olympics came and went, and afterwards another type of explosive development. People started moving back into the city. The intown neighborhoods started to add population for the first time since the 1970’s. And just now, in my neighborhood of Midtown in 2023, things are finally becoming the densely developed live-work-play community other cities already have, but Atlanta was lacking when I moved here all those years ago.
But the biggest change of all, I guess, is that I have finally decided to leave Atlanta.
This is not a negative thing. Atlanta has changed and grown, and so have I.
Remember a few years ago we had the pandemic? My lesson from that was that I would need more in retirement, unless my plan was to go crazy in the first few months. Sitting in my loft-style condo all those months it because easy for me to imagine how retirement will look – There is not much to do in this space once I’ve cleaned. I learned I would need physical activities, chores, and projects to keep me physically busy and physically engaged, and there really is only so much you can do inside a box-like condo a couple hundred feet above street level. That’s why I’ve spent a lot of time the last few years thinking about what I would need, and the answer was simple: More activity. Duh. Less simple, I will eventually a house with a yard. Problematically, there are no houses, with yards, that I can afford on my state salary in a part of Atlanta I would want to live. So then I had to decide where I would move.
A few years back, as my father was in his decline, I went home more and more to visit. I still had a couple friends in my hometown, so I’d reach out to them and ask if they’d like to meet up. They’d recommend various places, and through that I started to say my hometown “doesn’t suck as much as I’d remembered.” It’s one of those small southern cities that is having its own renaissance, of sorts. And add to that, a few of the people I grew up with, who themselves moved away to do their thing, have moved back for retirement as well. So, a happy little group has developed and that, well, is why I’ve decided to move back to my hometown. And now that I’ve figured out what I need, and where to find it, all that was left was putting a plan in motion.
Two things, to that end, happened during the pandemic. The first, we all experienced, and that was working remotely. The second, I was reorganized at work into a new division. I had previously been in a position integral to a department – In this case, it did indeed mean that I had to physically be in the department to complete many tasks and to make sure things went smoothly. My new position, however, could be easily performed remotely – In fact, I have been the only member on my team to continue going into an office in the two years since the reorganization. Through this I have learned that I am a work-social person. I need to socialize with people in the office. But in this new setting, there have been many days in which I am the only person there. Weeks would often pass without me seeing anyone at work. And I could have worked from home, like everyone else, except that I really don’t like spending every second of my day in a box-like condo a couple hundred feet above the street. Well, earlier this year, I finally came to the decision to request permission to work remotely, from another state.
My request was approved within a day.
So, my friends, aside from the moments of typically GenX cynical paranoia in which I think this is a trap and I am just going to end up getting fired once I go remote, I am moving ahead with a plan to move. I’ve already packed up most of my place and moved it out so my condo won’t be visually cluttered when potential buyers come to look. It’s on the market now. I went remote at work on July 1st, and I will be road tripping to Montana on the 8th for a couple weeks. Hopefully the place will go under contract while I am away so all I have to do is pack up the rest and move out.
Now, buying a place is not going to be a simple task. Like most communities around the US these days, the town I am moving to has a very hot housing market. The half-way decent properties will linger in the market for a few days before going under contract, but the really nice ones are normally under contract the day they hit the market, and normally for more than asking. So I will need to be quick, and perhaps aggressive. Or, maybe this is the universe (borrowed that term from How I Met Your Mother, and have never really bought into it, but here I am using it) telling me that this is not the place for me to live. Who knows.
So what do I know? I know that I have an opportunity before me. I know that, if I am able to move beyond the moments in which I freak out (completely normal – we all freak out, even when we have made the best plans), then I could make out of this a really enjoyable adventure. I know that a couple people above me at work have openly encouraged me to think outside the box, and maybe take some seasonal activities while I am working remotely. Beyond that, I am still trying to figure this out.
So step one is to sell my condo in Atlanta – That has been initiated. I have made plans to move the larger items, which I have not been able to move myself, into storage – If I buy a place then I will have the things delivered there once I close. But should I decide to go nomadic (I’ve not yet mentioned that here, but it is absolutely something I am considering), then I can leave my stuff in storage for longer. The options are endless, but so are the decisions I need to make.
Well, this has been me thinking out loud. I am optimistic. But also very nervous.
Wish me luck.
#GenX #Retirement #Adventure #GenerationX #Montana #Atlanta #LeavingAtlanta #Nomadic
Will's GenX Adventure 