Retired for the journey ahead

Following up on my retirement benefits at the office, April 27, 2026.

What’s retirement like for you?

People often ask me that question when they learn I’ve already retired, which took effect on March 1, almost eight months before my 65th birthday.

My answer never varies: It’s almost the same as not having retired at all, except that I don’t get the same pay and benefits that I got when I was still a regular employee at INQUIRER.net.

And I’m lucky to have been accepted by the same company as an editorial consultant, which means my workload, though still somewhat hefty, no longer includes supervisory duties, except when my replacement as news editor, who now attends the meetings I used to attend, asks me to take over.

Pilot episode: Disturbing events in the US

“The events unfolding in the US since the start of 2025 look like the pilot episode of a multiseason political TV series — amusing as fictional drama but disturbing as a real newscast.”

Not to be self-important about it, but those are my own words, which I posted earlier today on my Tumblr and BlueSky accounts. I’m quoting myself simply because I don’t want to be accused of plagiarizing myself.

It’s not even a unique observation. Many others, I imagine, have the same idea, though they may say it differently.

Pandemic shopping spree

Three of the more than 30 pens I have.

I’ve never fancied myself as a collector of anything – except maybe random facts and anecdotes and, in my younger years, books.

And yet now I find myself with a collection of various items related to my interests – fountain pens, inks, ballpoint pens, watercolor sets, sketchbooks, notebooks, melodicas, and harmonicas. 

You grow old, and then you dye

That’s my hair undyed.

Sometimes I dye my hair dark brown, its natural color before the gray strands started showing up. 

I’m not trying to hide my age. As I write this, I’m just two months into my 61st year.

I don’t mind being gray-headed – if my entire head were gray. But it’s still in its salt-and-pepper transition stage.

Milestone

My work-from-home setup.

I marked a milestone in my life at a bad time. I turned 60 on Nov. 17, 2021, in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At that age, you become more conscious about your health, and with a pandemic hanging over your head, you worry even more.