It always comes back to timing, doesn't it?
I made a series of decisions and appointments about a month ago that sets up the next year, and hopefully gets me;
1.) Healthy enough to play music again.
2.) As healthy as possible before I retire from the public service career and thus, don't have the sick leave that I have accumulated over 30 years.
3.) A schedule that gets me through this Spring and Summer coping with the meds and a series of two more epidural steroid injections. I got the first one yesterday, I'll have another one in July.
4.) Sometime this Fall, I'll proceed with another multi-level thoracic/cervical fusion. Same surgeon, same hospital, same everything. I'm just a little bit older is all.
5.) I'll return to work in Spring 2024, probably late February or early March, and basically be running out the clock. My official retirement date is 12/1/2024, but I will still have roughly four months of paid leave to burn up before then, and I certainly plan to use it rather than take the lump sum check.
Then what? Well, I guess it depends on several things that I can't possibly know yet. I will be working somewhere else doing something. I have quite a few options on the table now. I have a standing invitation to return to music semi-full-time with some old friends from my Nashville crash-diet days. There's this old buddy of mine who is Regional Coordinator for a state-wide nonprofit that works with small, underfunded communities with aged, or failing water facilities and infrastructure to make improvements and provide technical assistance. I could definitely see me getting into a gig like that. And there's always my Scroll Shop. If I do it legit and somewhat full-time, I could easily fill up a week. Even with a full pension check going in the bank every month, I still need to do something. But I got time to weigh options.
Firstly, I am not going to try playing much this year, at least not in the sense that I'll rejoin the band and resume a gig schedule. There is one wedding that I really want to play for, and one band reunion party I'll be a big part of. I may try to jam some in between, just to get used to interacting with other musicians again. I feel really good right now after that godawful shot yesterday... my left hand especially is warm in 'all the right places', which is very encouraging. I got a couple guitars out for later this evening and tomorrow. Little Darling '
Aglaope' hasn't seen daylight in a while. And there are a couple little Martin guitars with scowly faces in the locker too.
Feels good to have a plan, even if there is some more unpleasantness in the path.
