Oddly enough the older I get the more I feel like I've done it all.

I'm 36 years old. Society insists that by now I should be in the middle of a career. I've had three careers; I was let go as an auto mechanic during the 2008 recession, my job as a flight instructor ended due to problems internal to the company, let's leave it at that, and the prototyping shop I was project manager of most recently folded during the pandemic. I'm loathe to start over again.

Society also insists that I should be a husband and father by now. I never wanted children, and both of my ex-fiancees are mostly why I am now a bachelor in my mid-30's. I need an ex wife like I need a hole in my head and that's all any attempt at starting a "family" would bring.

Meanwhile, I've driven across the United States from coast to coast, I've flown the length of the Appalachians solo, I've built houses, furniture, electronics, race cars, airplanes, all manner of ridiculous objects (I managed a prototyping shop, after all), I've played concerts, I have artwork hanging in a gallery, I've seen the aurora borealis, two solar eclipses, comet Hale Bopp and once with the help of an unnecessarily powerful and lightly loaded airplane, I took off at dusk and watched the sun rise in the west.

I survived two shootings, a riot, ten hurricanes, that goddamn tornado and a global pandemic.

And even among all that I still watched a lot of TV, saw a lot of movies and played a lot of video games. Accoutrements of old hobbies gather dust because I've...finished them.

So what now?