Lately I’ve been hunting down high school classmates. Not quite sure what started this - must have been when I went sifting through my keepsakes for a copy of “The Door” by E.B. White. (Couldn’t remember the name, or I would’ve just Googled for it.)

Sunday night I found my friend Mike Cargill, who now goes professionally by the name Michael J. Cargill. He’s working in NYC as a writer and is trying to sell a screenplay or two. (Any takers?) Also found old friend Doug Slawin, who plays guitar in a band in Connecticut. Tonight I found Dr. David Welky, who has apparently become quite the historian and professor.

Others are just lost to me. Tammie Smith, another doctor (but of medicine) was last seen in Chicago under profoundly heinous circumstances in 1998 - the year I’d rather just forget. Kathy Windish was my freshman year roomie in college, and I think she got married and had kids and I can’t find her. I’m not sure she’d want me to, come to think of it. Dan Tienes, one of the most talented guys I knew, is also unknown to Google at this time. The last I’d heard (which was years ago) he’d moved to Connecticut.

It’s funny to see what some of my former classmates are doing, and then look at me. Am I living up to my “potential”? Sometimes I wonder, especially during particularly frustrating client meetings where I’m staring across the desk at incredulous-looking thirty-somethings who are demanding just why they can’t retire at 55 without saving $15,000 per year. Is it truly my calling to explain to people what their parents should have - that money doesn’t grow on trees?

More and more I’ve given thought to leaving the advising world behind and doing something more… I don’t know. Just more. I swear, just living with the fact that so many people do not have the money to retire above the poverty line - and more importantly, don’t care - gets exhausting. My boss at my previous job was a broker for a while, and got out of it because he couldn’t handle “causing” people to lose money. That was easy to get past for me - because you have to choose solid investments and hold them long-term. But this whole “where do you think I’m going to get that kind of money” lifestyle in regards to saving for retirement - that’s going to do me in.

So, I sit in my little corner of the world, wondering where I’d “rank” amongst my friends from school. I’m not looking for a cure for HIV, and I’m not nurturing our young adults. I’m beating my head against my desk. Does that count?

I think I’ll sit on these thoughts a little longer. Or maybe dismiss them altogether. Not sure at this point.

Mumbling,
michelle