This whole empty nest thing happens faster than I ever thought possible.

Not that the nest is completely empty but The-Youngest has reached that point where he’d rather poke a rusty needle into newly discovered private parts than spend an evening watching Ted Lasso with us.

I knew in my heart that this day would come and so I honestly treasured all the time I got to spend with them. I got to be there for a lot of the ‘firsts’. I got to experience theme parks through the eyes of excited children. I even got to talk to them about history any time they needed to know about history (however, my sex talk with The-Youngest was a disastrous mixture of awkwardness, overuse of the word condom, and a few spectacularly inappropriate miming gestures.)

But it’s like knowing your dog will pass away – Knowing and living it are not the same thing.

It took me a little time to realize that my life had changed while I was eating a tub of ice cream and worrying about that time coming. I found I was not writing. Not creating exciting D&D content. Not gaming much. Not doing anything of real value or worth.

In short, I was not being the best Joe possible.

I was depressed.

So what to do about that?

Stop eating donuts?

Hard no.

Go for a run every day?

Harder no.

Create a garden in the back and grow all our food (including buying a bunch of chickens and a few milky cows)?

Way too smelly.

Then I realized I was coming at this the wrong way. Being depressed had pushed my anxieties through the roof (and no wonder, really, has anyone looked at the state of the world lately? Or our middle class?)

But there are things I can fix and things I can’t. First up, stop that anxiety.

I went to the doctor and got medication.

I hate taking meds for things like this but it was the first step in getting back the best Joe possible.

Then I looked at what made me anxious. Money was the number one item. With inflation, my house value falling and my investments barely holding their own, it was time to fix that.

How do you fix that?

Get a job.

Yes. Me. At age 60.

But what job could I do? Or, more importantly, what job could I do that wouldn’t end with me either in jail or a mental institute.

Retail?

Super hard, hell no. I could make a pretty good salary there as a regional manager but I’d had enough of the 3am calls to fix something, and there was no way I’d go back to a store.

“I’d like to return this.”

Me: “Do you have a receipt?”

“No.”

Me: “Ok, we can give you store credit.”

“I don’t want store credit, I want cash.”:

Me: “We can’t give you cash back without a receipt. I’m sorry. Wait, that’s not even something we carry.”

“I don’t care. I want my cash back. You can send it back to the manufacturer.”

Old me would say, “I’m so sorry, we won’t be able to help you today.” I’d usually say it about 20 times before they leapt over the counter and attacked me.

Today, I would say, “Are you insane, you pee-drinking, donkey-licking, heroin baby? Is this your first time shopping, you maggot-mouthed, piggy-eyed, anus-faced walking advertisement for lobotomies?”

My guess is I’d lose that job that same day.

Maybe my life.

So, not management for me. No sirree. Something simple. Something I can do then go home and not worry about hiring new staff, firing someone or finding a way to make our financial goals.

It was (as it often is), The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World who came up with an idea.

Hey, why not be a Lifelabs driver? You like to drive. You can make a difference in the world. And you can get out of the house and stop greeting me when I come home like a lost puppy.

I checked them out.

There was an opening.

I applied.

And just like that, I got my first job in a very, very long while.

But was I moving in the right direction? Or had I leaped off the Titanic onto a sinking wooden pallet with sad music playing?