Lake Minneola to Lake Wobegon and Back

In July 2022, I wrote “Thoughts on Leaving California” about my move back to Florida after twenty years in the Golden State; I followed it a year later with “A Year Back in Florida”, which ended with “I’ll check back in after another year.” I’ve been doing that annually ever since, although the date has kind of crept up; this year I’m over a month late. I wrote 2024’s check-in during a 16-month stretch of unemployment. While part of that was a deliberate break, most of it wasn’t. That check-in was kind of angry. Last year’s check-in got even angrier, even though I’d gotten a fun contract that ended up running over a year. Much of the anger stemmed from the country’s steadily degenerating sociopolitics; more than a little came from a sense of being trapped by geography. So how am I feeling now, four years in, unemployed in a terrible job market, less than a decade from traditional retirement age when it seems increasingly likely we’re heading into a recession—at best—within the next…