For this week’s Tale Weaver prompt from Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, we are asked to consider the idea of going into the unknown. I was thinking about writing a piece of flash fiction, maybe some sci-fi or fantasy post, but then I thought about four times in my life when I felt, at the time, I was stepping into the unknown.
My first job after graduating from college
After spending sixteen of my first 21 years in school, I graduated from college and entered the workforce. Not some paper route thing or making ice cream sundaes part-time at the local ice cream shop. I’m talking about a full-time, grown-up job. I was hired as a management trainee at an insurance company and I had no idea what to expect. I ended up becoming a “senior manager” and spending ten years with that organization.
Getting married
I was a wild and crazy guy and I loved being single. I remained single until I was 32 when I married the girl I’d been dating for two years. Learning to share yourself completely with another person, especially when you start late, like I did, was a whole new way of life. Fortunately, I adapted. And so did she.
Becoming an empty nester
Kids take a lot of time, effort, energy, and attention, and my wife and I spent most of the first 25 years of our lives together dedicating ourselves to raising our two kids. Then one day, they were both out of our house and I suddenly wondered what, aside from our kids, my wife and I had in common. That was scary. But it turned out to be a period of relationship rediscovery and enrichment. After a while I hardly missed not having our kids around all the time.
Retirement
I had, for my entire adult life, defined myself by what I did for work. And then I retired. For the first time in almost five decades I didn’t have a job. No boss, no coworkers, no subordinates. No meetings, no conference calls, no business trips. So who was I? What was I supposed to do with my time now that I no longer was working? Talk about stepping into the unknown. Well, it’s been about three years since I retired and I have discovered that there’s much more to me — and to life — than what I did for a living.
I’m sure there have been times in all of your lives when you felt like you were stepping into the unknown. I’d love to hear from some of you what your “into the unknown”experiences were.
This, That, and the Other 
Seeing, reading, someone else doing it doesn’t really count. I babysat all my years with nephews and nieces but having my own was different and hard. And I was across the country in a whole new world. Very difficult. It was not what I thought or dreamed.
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It was great knowing more about u.. I loved your words when u said about rediscovering after ur kids left ..
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I think you nailed well good sir, and I agree with you on the topics you raised, though marriage didn’t work out for me. Certainly retirement has been a great time for me, still is and I’m hoping it continues that way tomorrow. Thanks for adding your thoughts to the tale weaver.
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I suppose Garry felt that way marrying me. I’be been married before, but he was 48 and single. He’d had “live in” girl friends, but they weren’t committed relationships. And Saturday, we are celebrating anniversary number 28! Imagine that. Who’d’ve thunk it?
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Happy Anniversary to both of you!
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And than your virtual friends emerged..
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My big unknown moments, besides kids and marriage, was the day the doctor told me I had breast cancer and for the first time in my life, at nearly 45, finding an apartment myself for me and my daughter.
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Those are, indeed, big unknowns.
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I feel like if I was told I had cancer, I would do my best to ignore it. Of course I don’t know how that would go.
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I didn’t know how to answer this when it was a new topic. A lot of my life has been unknowns. Leigha reminded me, though, of when I moved with my sons into an apartment (from a house with an acre yard while we had been trying to build a new house on 13 and a third acres with a spring). I went into the first place I saw as acceptable outside of the small city/town/suburb we had lived in. I was told I couldn’t qualify for it because it was subsidized housing. The young lady there suggested a particular well-known street (in the next state); she said to just pick a place there. The first place there I went in happened not to have anyone in the office at the moment. I’m glad, because the next place I went was even nicer; lived there for ten years.
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