love

Wedding Mode

I am charming.

Not year-round. Catch me on a random Tuesday in February and there’s a decent chance I’m avoiding eye contact at the grocery store while pretending to study soup labels. But give me a wedding where one of my children is getting married, and I transform into a socially acceptable version of myself.

This weekend, the charm was dripping off me like sweat at an outdoor reception in Oklahoma.

Conversations? I could talk to anybody about anything. Politics, brisket temperatures, whether people under thirty still know how to parallel park—I’m in. People walked away convinced I was fully engaged the entire time. I probably was mostly engaged, but these varicose veins keep me from being fully ambistrous.

Yes, I looked it up. “Ambistrous” means being able to do something equally well sitting or standing. My brain can socialize indefinitely. My legs start filing formal complaints with management somewhere around minute thirty-seven. (Or was it those dress shoes?)

Normally I wait for people to find me. This weekend I was seeking them out, starting conversations on purpose, approaching strangers with something resembling confidence. This goes against every part of my being on most days—and, honestly, most years—of my life. But give me a wedding where I’m acquiring a son- or daughter-in-law and something in me rises to the occasion and says, “Today we will appear emotionally healthy.”

DIY wedding? Doesn’t shake me much. My wife wisely withholds enough of the plan to prevent me from offering what I call efficiency analysis and what others might call being difficult. If I don’t know the plan, I can’t optimize the plan. That’s marriage wisdom right there. And if my legs begin filing formal grievances, I wave the “functioning mutant” flag, find a couch, and cheer everybody on from a seated position.

Some people mistake this charm for pure sincerity. That’s not exactly right. It’s more like a carefully managed energy budget—burning today’s charm on credit from future me. The curtain can get thin. Those who know me know exactly which questions drop it.

But there’s a rare category of person who reverses the drain entirely. Someone who returns sass properly. Not cruelty—playful disrespect wrapped in affection. The kind that says, “I see you and I think you can handle this.” Conversational ping-pong. A way of saying, please don’t make me carry this alone.

One of the best surprises of the weekend was meeting Valerie. Not her real name, but it fits. In our family, she became known as the cougar. That’s the story as I received it, and I’m not fact-checking it now.

The origin goes back ten-plus years, when our son worked at the Chick-fil-A in the mall. Valerie was a mall walker who stopped afterward for a Dr Pepper. She wasn’t built for small talk. She’d ask whoever took her order something real—a question with follow-up potential. Our son passed her screening. If he didn’t know an answer, he’d look it up and have it ready next time. And knowing my son, there was some mild smart-mouth commentary included free of charge. All those years of me aggravating him had finally become an investment portfolio.

They stayed in touch. He visited her. She and her husband visited him during their three-year camper-living stretch. Phone calls when visits weren’t possible. This weekend, they came to his wedding.

What got me was how naturally she fit. She sparred with my other kids, my brother, and me like she’d known us for years. Nobody played it safe. Sometimes she’d get me with a good line and I’d fire one right back. You could see exactly why they kept up with each other—she’s the kind of person who refuses to let you be mediocre. If you weren’t going to show up as a real human, she’d have moved on to the next register.

But our son made an impression. A durable one. He earned that relationship by being fully himself, over and over, starting at a fast food counter before he was old enough to vote.

Forty-eight hours ago I had never met this woman. Now I’m a little jealous my son ended up with his own cougar grandma.

Me? Still charming, in short bursts. But I’m old enough to know I’m past the window for acquiring one of my own.

I’ll just keep the one I married.

She Didn’t Want Me There

My wife woke up at 6:30 screaming into her pillow from a nightmare. I told my son—two days out from his wedding—that it was either a bad dream or the crushing realization that she still shares a bed with me. He laughed and said I could self-deprecate with the best of them. I’ll take what I can get.

The real blow came an hour later. She needed my Sam’s card to buy rehearsal dinner ingredients, then followed it with, “I appreciate you, but I don’t want you to come.” Since the card lives on my phone, I was simultaneously needed and unwanted—emotional support livestock, essentially. She didn’t want me wandering beside the cart providing observational commentary on industrial-sized cream cheese or calculating the GDP of the pie aisle. She wanted peace. Focus. Things I occasionally threaten without trying.

Because she took my phone, I became a middle-aged Amish man sitting in the living room wondering where my digital life had gone. No audiobook. No bank account. Just me and my thoughts. Her apology later had all the warmth of a hostage video, but that’s Year 36. Nobody’s trying to impress anyone anymore. You’re just trying not to create paperwork.

What she’s conveniently ignoring is my personal growth. Earlier this week, a woman approached me in the Sam’s parking lot—new job starting tomorrow, two kids, needed rent money, and mentioned she was a Christian. I gave her something from my wallet with one condition: “If you aren’t really a Christian, this is a pretty bad thing you’re doing.” Compassion and spiritual accountability in one transaction. I’m basically a weird Baptist Batman.

I also spent half a day driving store to store hunting overripe bananas for banana bread for the Indian relatives coming in for the wedding. More than one store told me they’d just thrown the old ones out. I kept going. Thirty-five years ago that news would have triggered a level of self-righteous frustration usually reserved for HOA presidents. Now I absorb adversity with maturity and grace. Mostly because I’m tired. Growth should be measured in hesitation, not perfection.

My wife knows mornings are my best hours—when my verbal filter still has structural integrity. She knows that placing me near a pallet of cheesecake ingredients before 10 a.m. creates unnecessary risk exposure. She was not wrong to leave me home.

But the universe has a sense of humor.

My son mentions that his mom called because she can’t log into the Sam’s account. In my most supportive tone I said, “Tell her to call my phone.” Silence. Then I grabbed his phone, because apparently nobody appreciates timing. My wife informed me she had been calling my phone several times before realizing the vibrating device she kept hearing was in her own pocket.

After a couple of six-digit verification codes and some light mockery to keep the marriage oxygenated, she got logged in. She didn’t want me there. She needed me anyway. That’s probably marriage in its purest form.

There’s a currency in long marriages—emotional debits, financial credits, historical grievances filed away with perfect recall. I’m wired for all of it, which isn’t a quality I’m proud of. But somewhere in 35 years, Judy figured out how to make me softer without turning me into someone I wouldn’t recognize. She never tried to fully tame me, which was wise, because I’d have been unbearable in captivity.

I didn’t marry someone fragile. I married someone strong enough to argue with me, laugh at me, and occasionally still choose me anyway. She might wake up some mornings screaming from dreams I apparently star in—but she keeps crawling back into the same bed.

I’m counting that as affection.

The Budget That Lived Briefly

Judy set a wedding budget. Then she exceeded it. By how much is still unclear — probably double, possibly more, definitely enough that when the DJ called asking for his balance, her response was “Oh, I forgot about that one.”

I’ve been married long enough to know what that sentence means.

The original number was $2,000, plus we’d cover the rehearsal dinner — a reasonable, grown-up figure that apparently functioned more as a conversation-ender than an actual plan.

Here’s what I did with that budget: nothing. My wife said she had it handled, and I believed her, the way a husband learns to believe things when the alternative is a much longer discussion. I am a man who does well with specific instructions. “Pay this person on Venmo for the cake” — done. I noted “cake” as wedding-adjacent, did not open a spreadsheet, turned off my critical thinking like a responsible partner, and performed the task.

What I did not do was connect the cake to the flowers to the cheese cubes to the small jar of gherkins now living permanently in our refrigerator. Somewhere along the way, the wedding became a slush fund — gentle, loving, entirely intentional — designed to cushion our son, who has been mostly carrying this thing himself. His bride just finished her doctorate. She’s looking for work. The traditional “bride’s family pays” rule did not survive contact with reality, and Judy quietly decided we’d pick up the slack without making it a whole thing. Hard to argue with, honestly. Tracked? Absolutely not.

I stopped looking at the credit cards. If I don’t look, the gherkins are just groceries.

Now here’s where I become the punchline.

A couple of years ago I had what I generously called “success” with algorithmic trading bots. Then came the other part. I let the situation run longer than it deserved, checking the account periodically, hoping something would turn around. This week I finally closed every bot that was “unlikely to ever recover and make profit,” which was all of them. Everything is now in a normal, managed, boring retirement account. The math is simple: more went in than came out.

Judy’s response: “I wish you had never put money in that thing, but I’m glad you’re done.”

No lecture. No monthly callback. Just — glad you’re done.

So when the DJ called, and Judy said she forgot about that one, and I felt that small hot flicker of “we had a budget” — I thought about the bots. I thought about what it looks like when someone decides not to make you pay for something indefinitely. And I closed the credit card tab.

We were careful in our earlier years, because we had to be. That discipline is part of why a blown wedding budget is uncomfortable now instead of catastrophic. We earned the right to be a little imperfect with money, and we’ve both used that right with some enthusiasm.

She keeps terrible track of wedding expenses. I once handed real money to a robot that lost it. Neither of us is keeping score.

That’s probably what a long marriage eventually becomes — you run out of the moral high ground you thought you were standing on, and then you just have each other, some leftover gherkins, and a wedding that’s going to be really nice, rain or shine.

Something’s Going Around

Yesterday I couldn’t pull a post together. Tried a few angles, threw them against the wall, watched them slide like wet spaghetti. Even Mr. AI couldn’t find the thread. I let it go — not a waste, just something to bank for later.

So here I am today, a little achy, coughing in the morning, wondering if something’s coming for me or if this is just what your 60s feel like on a Saturday.

My walks have been fine if your standard is “I checked the box.” Earlier version of me could do five or six miles without thinking about it. My daughter and I took some long ones during COVID. Now I’m listening to a book and ignoring the fact that my feet are staging a slow rebellion.

The shoes are partly to blame. Found a pair I loved — perfect, until this week, when they let some foot pain in like they’d been holding it in reserve. I have Good Feet inserts and a couple of things I ordered online. None of them seems particularly invested in my well-being.

Then there’s the Ellie factor. Playing on the floor with a granddaughter sounds simple. It is not. Getting down is fine. The problem is bending my knees during the playing, and the moment she grabs my finger expecting me to spring upright regardless of whether my leg is folded into an origami crane. She has places to go. The inspection waits for no one. She’s also figured out that closed doors are a lot less intimidating when one of the big people is backing her up.

The germs are probably hers, too. COVID made me paranoid — cart handles, my phone, anything touched by human hands. I’ve relaxed about most of that. What I can’t get ahead of is sharing a spoon with someone who has no concept of germ theory and does not care. I sample things off her tray to encourage her to eat. She samples my lunch with her eyes until I give in. That’s the deal. I’m a willing accomplice.

Oklahoma cedar season is technically over, but I’m not ruling it out. I lived in Texas 15 years and never touched an allergy pill — thought I was immune, that pollen and I had some kind of truce. It left me alone long enough that I got cocky. Now my daily regimen is not exactly intimidating: a multivitamin, an allergy pill, and a baby aspirin. Not a real aspirin. A baby one.

The aches don’t stop me from anything. They don’t usually last more than an hour. Still cooking meals, planting flowers, escorting Ellie from one approved zone to the next.

Whatever it is — age, pollen, shoes, shared spoons — I’ll keep sleeping well and showing up. She’s going to grab that finger again tomorrow whether I’m ready or not.

The Nicest (and Meanest) Man She Ever Married

This morning, I asked my wife if she wanted a coffee refill. When she said yes, I pointed to the carafe, paused just long enough to enjoy myself, and then grabbed her cup and filled it.

“You spoil me,” she said with total sincerity. “You are the nicest.”

I knew better. “Yes,” I replied, “but I’m also the meanest man you ever married.”

She didn’t miss a beat. In that sweet tone of hers, she said, “I feel like I take advantage of you when you always fill my cup for me. I genuinely thank you for that.”

Since the caffeine hadn’t hit yet and I didn’t feel worthy of the praise, I had to do some soul searching. How does this woman continue to love a snarky, often cranky man who is constantly trying to deposit enough “I care for you’s” into the emotional bank before noon — before the day’s inevitable influences take hold?

In just over two weeks, we start our 36th year of marriage. As I look at the calendar, I realize I need to up my game just to keep pace with her. She is genuinely excited about everything on the horizon. Our future daughter-in-law’s wedding shower? She’s hosting it and is actually looking forward to entertaining. Her new job has come with more Day One problems than expected, yet she’s ready for the challenge. Our Europe trip this summer? Every excursion is planned, and she is anxious to spend two weeks straight with me. Based on that last point alone, she should probably be committed to an institution.

I am well aware of my flaws. I snap when my schedule gets turned upside down. I am prone to funking — my shorthand for being in a funk — where I become either disagreeable or retreat into stony silence for no apparent reason. When I’m tired, I’m nitpicky. I’m often someone I wouldn’t want to spend time with.

Yet somehow I’m a better person than the man who stood at the altar all those years ago.

Judy’s ability to look long has either rewarded her or cursed her — I’m genuinely not sure which. I believe I’ve incrementally improved, but it didn’t happen in the first five years. It may have only happened in the last five. In the chaos of shared life, a slightly nicer version of me has slowly taken possession of my faculties more often than the other guy. Maybe my tone is a bit softer. Maybe watching my kids live their lives and spending a few hours a week with my granddaughter has acted as a lubricant for the nasties, letting the good ideas flow while keeping the barely tolerable ones from doing too much damage.

She tells me every time we travel: “I like you more when we travel than when we are around the house.” I get it. At home, I’m weighed down by all the life things I feel responsible for. When we’re cruising, she handles the plan, and I just show up.

I travel well.

Maybe that’s why she puts up with me the other 50 weeks of the year.

I Love You More Before 8 P.M

I had a busy day.

Not “storming the beaches of Normandy” busy, but “Oklahoma suburban dad with three doctors, a land rush anniversary, and a fajita deadline” busy. By the time it was over, my social skills had clocked out at 5 p.m. and left the rest of me to freelance the damage.

Fun fact: this particular Tuesday in Oklahoma is the anniversary of the Land Run of 1889. It’s the day people lined up, waited for the cannon, and sprinted for free dirt. The nickname “Sooners” came from the folks who slipped out before the start time. They didn’t cheat; they just identified as “time-flexible.” Meanwhile, I wasn’t cheating anything. I was just trying to survive my schedule.

The day started with me putting the final touches on a project I lovingly call “Bleeding the Benefits Dry” at my wife’s employer. The schedule was aggressive. Some men are made for times like this. I am not one of those men — I am, however, just enough of one to say yes and then regret it in stages.

First stop: the dentist. Routine cleaning, plus a cavity that earned me a bonus visit the next day. On Day One, I wore a bright turquoise shirt. On Day Two, I wore red. I could have worn the same pants, but I cannot let the dental staff know I am capable of a multi-day streak with the same shirt. There are mysteries I prefer to keep between me and my laundry basket. The cavity fill itself was painless. The drill fired up right as Huey Lewis and the News started singing “Heart and Soul,” which felt like my molar’s last request.

From there, the GPS announced I’d arrive at the dermatologist in NW OKC with less than ten minutes to spare. I did what was necessary to buy a little more time and arrived in reasonable shape. Once inside, they weighed me and generously shared my BMI while I was still fully dressed, shoes and all. I’m fairly certain Mr. Body Mass Index never intended his invention to be used in “winter coat plus wallet” mode, but here we are.

The doctor came in apologizing about thin walls and how they talk to reduce stress. What I learned next was that Integris has decided dermatology is now a luxury, and they’re dropping coverage. My earlier-in-the-week appointment turned out to be a minor miracle of timing. The doc, however, was locked and loaded with his cryotherapy gun and not afraid to use it. He addressed a couple of spots on my back and one in my eyebrow — an old acquaintance, originally treated twelve and a half years ago after a trip to China. Most spots barely registered on the “Did you do something, Doc?” scale. The eyebrow one probably wasn’t cancerous, he said; it was just growing with more enthusiasm than I wanted on my face. He double-tapped it and sent it to keratosis jail. If anyone wants to post bail, they’re welcome to it. I don’t need that barnacle of aging marring the wrinkles and other disfigurements already collecting on my face.

Parting instructions: a blister may form. Don’t pop it. It’s nature’s band-aid. Use Vaseline.

I am a man who now has Vaseline on his mental checklist.

The GPS said I could make it home before Ellie woke up. The gas gauge disagreed. The next driver is also my wife, so I filled the tank and accepted I’d be a few minutes late. Marriages are built on these small surrenders.

She was still sleeping when I arrived, which gave me a short breather. When she woke at noon, I was on duty until 3:15. She got her bottle and then spent forty-five minutes making faces and drooling all over her peanut butter toast. She’s operating on gum-and-slobber settings right now, but the volume of drool and the frequency of bib changes suggest teeth are on the way. The afternoon was mostly play and exploration, followed by the subtle art of convincing her it was nap time. Grandpa has his methods. None are scientifically validated, but they eventually work.

Before she was up again, I slipped out to the eye doctor. I paid the small fee for the retinal camera instead of the dilation drops — quick, easy, no blurry afternoon to manage. I aced the vision test. My prescription hasn’t changed. The doctor couldn’t find the floaters or the Fuchs’ Iris Crypts. Boring is good. I awarded this the Best Doctor Appointment of the Day, an honor it earned simply by not finding anything worth worrying about.

One grocery run for guacamole fixings later, and I was home for dinner. My daughter had already sliced the peppers and onions and put them in the oven to roast. There was marinated chicken to grill and Ellie to entertain. When we sat down, we could have won a regional Mexican condiment award: homemade guac, cilantro salsa, and street corn dip, with strawberry shortcake queued up for dessert. It was a good dinner. The kind of good that tricks you into thinking you still have gas left in the tank.

After dinner, my son and I took a walk. He filled me in on honeymoon plans and some work challenges. Good conversation. But when we got back, I was already sliding toward wind-down mode, and I retreated to the den hoping my wife and I could salvage some TV time together.

That was the plan.

That was not what happened.

His fiancée came over for strawberry shortcake and, more dangerously, conversation. I sat in the den watching the clock, wondering at what point a household should put a “Closed” sign on dessert service. My daughter, who had been at the house most of the day working her online job while we babysat, wrapped up her final call around 9:20.

That was my moment.

I walked out of the den and announced: “Everybody needs to leave so I can get ready for bed. I had a busy day and I am tired.”

That line doesn’t invite much counter-dialogue. They shut down their conversations and headed for the door. My son walked his fiancée home. He probably apologized on my behalf and explained it wasn’t personal — just one of his dad’s quirks. That is, unfortunately, a very accurate assessment.

Here’s what I know about myself after all these years: I’m usually a happy, snarky guy. But when the tank is empty and the façade runs out, I become a less pleasant version of myself. He is not the one you want at game night or in a room full of people who are still wide awake and full of things to say. The den is supposed to be where I go to keep him contained. Sometimes it’s just where he simmers until he needs to vent. I am responsible for all of it. I’m just not always able to steer it in the moment.

So to the people who had to deal with that side of me — I’m sorry.

If you’re scheduling time with me, mornings are good, afternoons are fine, and evenings are a gamble. After 8 p.m., you’re probably working with about 75% of my usual civility, and that’s on a calm night. Consider this your operating manual: Andy is at his best — and yes, it’s a narrow best — until about dinner time.

I love you all. I just love you more before 8 p.m.

The End of Full-Time Grandpa (And Other Things I’m Not Supposed to Admit)

I’m going to confess something, and I need you to hear it with some grace.

When I found out Ellie’s babysitting hours were getting cut roughly in half this summer, I felt something I wasn’t entirely prepared for. It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t dread. It was approximately 30% relief — and somewhere between “pleased about it” and “absolutely horrified that I’m pleased about it.”

Here’s the thing about spending the better part of eight months as a near-full-time caregiver to a tiny human: you become incredibly important. You control what she eats. What she plays with. When she sleeps. You are, functionally, the benevolent overlord of her entire world — which sounds like a power trip until you realize the overlord is also cleaning up after every snack and quietly celebrating when she naps on schedule. The point is, Ellie is my buddy, my partner in crime. My best one right now, honestly. And I’m not entirely sure I’ll find her caliber of companionship roaming around in the wild.

But she is also, for the record, almost entirely dependent on me. Which makes it a healthy grandpa relationship. Not a control thing. I want to be clear on that.

The Alibi is Gone

For the past eight months, Ellie has served a dual purpose in my life that I didn’t fully clock until just recently: she was both my greatest joy and my best excuse.

Can’t make that thing? Babysitting. Can’t get to that list? Babysitting. Skipping the world’s least urgent errand? The baby. Sorry.

It worked because it was true. My schedule wasn’t my own — it was a rolling remix of my son-in-law’s class schedule and music lesson calendar, with occasional guest appearances from “early drop-off day” and “can you just grab her a couple extra hours?” Neither of which I ever once actually minded. Love my girl. But now that the schedule is loosening, the alibi evaporates with it.

And here’s the uncomfortable thing that emerges when the alibi goes away: I have to look directly at what semi-retirement actually is. No more buffer. No more built-in structure. Just me, a calendar with some new blank space in it, and the gnawing suspicion that “semi” is becoming less defensible by the week.

The identity crisis, it turns out, keeps scheduling follow-up appointments.

So, What Now?

I have been running through the options with the seriousness they deserve, which is to say I’ve been loosely rattling them around in my head between walks and online chess games.

There’s the bucket list route — though I’ve always been a little suspicious of people who pursue bucket lists “blindly.” Life tends to edit your bucket list for you whether you ask nicely or not.

There’s the T-shirt brand idea, which sounds ridiculous until I remember I occasionally hit a genuinely funny idea in what I can only describe as an elusive zen-sarcastic state. Mugs, maybe. Something.

There’s volunteering — the classic semi-retiree move that buys you grace, purpose, and a totally legitimate reason to defer the bigger decisions until your wife retires and the two of you can figure it out together. I’m not above this plan. I’m almost in favor of it.

What I’m not doing: more crypto. More forex. More anything that requires me to hand my optimism over to an algorithm and hope for the best. I made it to semi-retirement with most of my wits intact, and I’d like to keep that streak going.

What I am doing — and this one feels right — is leaning harder into the semi-autobiographical writing I’ve been circling for a while. There’s something in there worth saying. There are stories I’ve been carrying around waiting for someone to sit down and actually write them, and lately that someone keeps making eye contact with me in the mirror.

The Part That’s Easy

Here’s what I already know, even before I figure out the rest:

I want to be the grandpa who’s down on the floor. The one who pretends to sleep and gets “rudely” awakened by a curious toddler who thinks this is the funniest game ever invented. The one who’s genuinely present — not physically in the house but mentally somewhere else drafting a passive income strategy.

I missed parts of my kids’ childhoods that I can’t go back and retrieve. That’s just honest. But I get a second pass at this — not to rewrite anything, but to actually feel what I apparently drove past too fast the first time around.

If every project I consider from here on out has to fit around that commitment — being available to my kids, being present for my grandkids, staying on the floor — then that’s not a constraint. That’s the whole architecture.

If I never find anything more valuable than that, I’ll consider it a life well-lived. Ellie didn’t know she was giving me an eight-month tutorial in how to be that grandpa. But she was. The “semi” might be fading. The purpose is getting clearer.

The “I Do” Adoption

My son is getting married in a couple of months. She is wonderful. She is also from a completely different culture than ours, which means we are all, on a fairly regular basis, figuring each other out.

That’s not a complaint. That’s just the truth.

When your kid gets married, you don’t just gain a daughter or son-in-law. You adopt them. Nobody tells you that when your kid says “I do,” you’re quietly saying it too. The vows are theirs. The adoption papers are everybody’s.

We’ve had our share of “whoops” moments. Some of them are hers. Some of them are ours. I’d be willing to bet that on the occasions where I thought she’d missed something, she had a perfectly reasonable explanation rooted in how she was raised — and I just didn’t know enough to ask. I’ve been married for 35 years. I still miss things. The idea that I’d have it all figured out with someone I’ve known for just over a year is ambitious, at best.

To his credit, my son prioritized pre-marital counseling before any of this got official. Smart move for any couple. For a cross-cultural one, it’s close to mandatory.

My wife is better at this than I am. She is more patient, more instinctively gracious, and far less likely to assign fault before asking a question. I am a work in progress. She has been working on that project for 35 years and will probably need a few more. It took me that long to become even slightly less selfish than I was on our wedding day.

We are, in a sense, the booby prize she gets for loving our son. She knew what she was signing up for with him. The rest of us came with the package.

What I do know is that she is trying. She genuinely loves our son. She has put real effort into being part of this family, even when this family probably made that harder than it needed to be. She’s learning us in real time. So are we.

The grace has to go both directions. Different families have different quirks even when they share a culture. When the cultures are genuinely different, you need more runway, more patience, and a willingness to say “I didn’t understand that — can you help me?” without anybody getting their feelings hurt. We are still building that. Some days are easier than others.

When they say “I do,” we all do, a little bit. We’re agreeing to figure each other out. To give grace before assigning blame. To ask before assuming. To remember that someone who does things differently isn’t doing them wrong.

I’ve needed that same grace extended to me more times than I can count.

Welcome to the family. We’re still under construction, too.

The Call That Postponed My Retirement

This is a further explanation of two of the titles included on my “semi-retired” business card. (Dual Format Bookworm and Spousal Support Engineer)

The phone call came two months ago, and just like that, the Summer of ’26 vanished.

It was an offer my wife couldn’t — and, logically, shouldn’t — refuse. A similar role to her current one, fully remote, better pay, working with a well-respected colleague from her past. I wasn’t in the room when she took the call. I heard about it afterward, which is probably how most husbands learn the major plot twists in their lives.

I considered a counterargument. The best I had was “I have over 6,000 books on Kindle and Audible.” Most of them were free. The rest I bought on sale, fully intending to read them immediately. That argument, it turns out, doesn’t hold much water against a high-level role with better benefits. So we pushed the goalposts. Summer of ’29 it is.

To understand why I didn’t put up more of a fight, you have to understand our roles. For 35 years, my wife has been the undisputed Bread-Winner. I’ve made several noble attempts at being a Dough-Winner, but her bread is simply better baked, more plentiful, and has a much more reliable crust.

As we navigated kids, fostering, and a move to Texas, she was the one traveling when the company called. She worked evenings and weekends to make the bosses happy, while I waved from the sidelines — or texted her from the same room to see if she remembered she had a husband. My retirement is technically rock-solid and investment-backed, but it is not the golf-and-slow-coffee variety. It is a series of Supporting Roles. I am the Head of Domestic Logistics, and my CEO just signed a three-year extension.

Here’s the part that gets me. She’ll be home. Physically present, same house, same zip code — and completely unreachable. My wife working remotely is not my wife being available. It’s my wife in a digital fortress with a closed door and four consecutive video calls.

I was hoping to pass the childcare baton this year. Instead, I’ve been re-enlisted. I am currently a specialist in diaper-related hazardous waste management — an unpaid internship with zero upward mobility, but I’m told the exposure is great. By the time 2029 rolls around, our granddaughter will be four and likely helping her mom manage two or more siblings.

Then there are the hockey boys. Another three years of work means another three seasons of high-protein breakfasts and civilized-living lessons. It’s all penciled in. As long as they like toddlers and don’t commit any sins beyond redemption, the house stays full.

So we’re staying in the wind and the Oklahoma heat a little longer. Our local kids will be here at least two more years before their academic pursuits take them elsewhere, which means delaying retirement only adds one year of real extension anyway. I participated in this decision. I agreed it was the right call. My counterargument was weak, and I knew it.

I am a reluctant retiree, but I have people — and one very small person — depending on me most days of the week. I don’t get paid, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get compensated.

I’ll get to those 6,000 books eventually. I just need my wife to retire first.

Values Don’t Retire

My wife and I are somewhere in the foothills of retirement. Not even close to the summit. There are still detours on this road, and honestly, we keep choosing them. We could draw a straight line to the finish — coast, let someone else worry about the spring weather.

But here we are, babysitting a ten-month-old and still figuring out health insurance. And I wouldn’t trade it.

Faith Is a Verb

Every time our kids gather around the table, we say a prayer. That’s not a performance — it’s just what we do. Faith comes up again before the meal’s over, usually more than once. We counsel our kids, married and unmarried, on building something with a Godly foundation. But we learned a long time ago that advice requires a listener. Acting on it? That part belongs to them.

We’re conservative Christians. We attend a church that reflects that — not perfectly, but pretty close. Our kids know where we stand. They also know we can’t believe for them. My granddaughter, as much as I adore her, will have to find her own faith someday. Her parents’ belief won’t carry her across that finish line, and neither will ours. What we can do is make sure the example exists. Doing nothing, after all, is the easiest thing in the world to imitate.

The Tangible Stuff

I’m not going to pretend grandparenting is purely a spiritual exercise. My granddaughter needs a babysitter, and I technically have “spare time” — though I’m not sure where I’m hiding it. My wife works remotely, so we tag-team diaper duty in shifts that would make any grandparent proud.

And yes — her job keeps us from raiding our savings for insurance premiums until we hit 65. These aren’t just financial decisions. They’re the quiet argument I make every day to my kids without saying a word: this is what showing up looks like.

Respect Isn’t Political

Everyone has value. The prisoner. The foster kid. The garbage man. We did foster care for six years — that wasn’t a hobby, it was a conviction. The political lines blur for me here. But the bottom line is simple: treat me and my country with respect, and I’ll meet you with kindness. As a Christian, at a minimum, I owe you a prayer. We’re all sinners. Just not all saved.

Generosity Without the Receipt

Could I give more? Absolutely — most of us could, and I’d be a fool to claim otherwise. We give to causes, including our church. Our kids know we give. They don’t need to know the number. The impression matters more than the invoice.

Commitment Is the Whole Game

Marriage is the biggest bet most people will ever place. We’re honest with our kids about it: it’s not easy. It requires two people willing to grow up and reckon with the fact that their decisions now affect someone else’s life, too. We hold an old-fashioned view on this. A marriage with a Christian foundation is simply better, in our experience. That’s not a lecture. It’s just what we’ve lived.

The Promotion We Didn’t Know Was Coming

Somewhere around the time your kids leave the house, you stop being a parent in the daily operational sense and get promoted — if you’re lucky — to trusted counselor. We’re hoping to earn that promotion unanimously.

We weren’t perfect parents. Our advice isn’t flawless either. But if our kids can feel the gist of how we’ve lived — if they’ve seen our convictions match our words, if they’ve watched our marriage hold — then it’ll be hard for any of them to look back and say, “Nobody told me that.”

You were told. You were shown.

We’re not trying to make our kids into copies of us. We’re trying to make sure they don’t walk into the world without a compass. Call me boring. Just don’t accuse me of raising kids who’ll make the world worse. We fought too hard for that. And if they pass something worthwhile to the next generation of Gruenbaums?

That’s the whole point of the journey.