When we dreamed up this “one year, one country” idea, we did not expect that we would feel that coming back to the States every year was necessary. We knew we’d want to see family and friends, but weren’t sure what form that would take. We knew that we loved our cabin in Maine and would want to visit it from time to time. But life on the road isn’t all beaches and sunshine, and despite our glamorous blog-ready lifestyle (that’s a joke, people) sometimes we have to just get sh*t done. Some things can’t wait until we return to the U.S., like filing taxes or paying bills. But for others, we have a tendency to absentmindedly say, “We’ll take care of that over the summer!” Then summer arrives and the list is as long as all four of our arms put together. 

When someone asked me recently what it means to be retired, I said, “Retirement means doing what you want to do, not what you have to do.” But that’s not entirely true. Maybe it just means doing more of what you want to do and less of what you have to do. So here’s what’s been on our gotta-do list this summer.

Fighting back the forest. Our rustic cabin on the lake is a piece of heaven, but it would be quickly swallowed up by the Maine woods if we didn’t maintain it. This year, critters were a big focus. We found that mice had made themselves quite comfy in the cabin over the winter. Unfortunately, they were messy guests and thought it was perfectly acceptable to poop all over the place. They even nested in the back of the stove! So this year we found ourselves cleaning up after Mousepalooza 2023 and then taking steps to prevent a 2024 reunion. We plugged every hole to the outside we could find, even sliding under the camp (insert shudder here) with the spiders and creepy crawlies to find more holes wherever a pipe or wire enters the house. We covered the big ones with screens and plugged the little ones with steel wool. We even glued screens to the back of the stove. Then we moved on to stopping a steady parade of ants that we pray are not the ironically named “carpenter” kind by spreading boric acid powder for them to take home as a parting gift. And every year we knock down the early-stage papery nests hanging from the rafters outside before they become massive wasp-bombs. 

Then there’s the standard, gotta-do-’em chores like scraping moss and pine needles off the roof, cleaning a winter’s worth of gunk out the gutters, painting the dock, and pruning back bushes so they don’t scrape the cabin or block the view. After three years of incremental progress, we finally finished painting the exterior and trim of the cabin and boathouse. And every year it seems we add one or two extra projects just for fun – this year it was building an outdoor rack for the kayaks and canoe. I sometimes wonder if I secretly enjoy all of these projects because they exercise my body, mind, and hands, result in a visible end product, and give me a reason to be outside beyond just R&R. And in truth, I do enjoy many of them – but cleaning up mouse poop and scraping shingles? Not so much.

Doctors and dollars. We tend not to seek preventive health care when we’re out of the country. Last year we had Spanish health insurance, and even then it just seemed easier to see our long-time doctors at home. Switching doctors is a chore in itself, requiring lots of paperwork and phone calls, so we have taken the path of least resistance and continue to schedule all of our annual visits for the few days when we pass through Massachusetts. And health insurance? Don’t get me started. Switching insurance last year was required for our visas, but it’s not something we want to do every year. It took us a month just to get our U.S. insurance cards, and then one of them had the wrong information! I suppose they make it difficult for a reason – and I’m guessing that reason is not the satisfaction of customers who want to leave and come back every year.

As to finances, some tasks we can handle online while we’re away, and some can only be managed when we’re in the U.S. For example, some billing accounts won’t allow a computer to log on from outside the U.S. for security reasons. One thing we set aside for the summer is an annual look back at how much we spent on what. As much as budgeting can be a pain, it’s fascinating to look back on what we spent, remember fondly what we spent it on, and talk about whether we would do it again. Then we look at what we can afford to do in the coming year, which categories are burning our nest egg up, and where the flames are under control. Travel within the countries, for example, has turned out to be more than we thought because we so often say, “Gotta do that – we’ll never be closer!” But so far we have spent less than expected on rent (last year’s luxury-on-a-budget lesson: rent a beach-side apartment in the off-season!). Having a sense of the numbers empowers us to make good decisions about where to spend and whether this adventure is really sustainable for ten years or more.

Exercising our brains. This is more of a year-round activity than a “summer chore.” But somehow it always feels like those long summer days will give us endless hours to focus on mental challenges and creative hobbies. Then summer comes and we have to figure out how to fit in everything on the to-do list. One activity we are fitting in is continuing to learn Spanish. We each have our own methods and learning styles, but we try to do at least an hour a day of practice so whatever we have learned so far doesn’t slip away entirely. “Summer learning loss” is real, and not just for kids. In fact, I’m guessing it’s worse for us retirees. If I go a month without practicing Spanish, I’ll bet I lose two months of learning. I’ve tried learning the past tense three separate times, and each time, I get interrupted and then have to start all over again. I’m like a goldfish swimming by a little plastic Preterite tense castle. “Hey look! It’s the Preterite! What’s that?”

Then there are the ties to my former professional life that haven’t been fully severed. If you’re lucky, after you retire you can stay active in meaningful work without all the hassles that go along with having a job (that’s right, kids: in the “before” times, people commuted to an actual building to work every day!) Done right, the organization fills a need and the consultant gets to drop in and be an expert for a while. I imagine it’s sort of like being a grandparent: The parents get a highly invested and knowledgeable babysitter from time to time, and the grandparents get all of the fun without the 3am diaper changes. I’m one of those lucky people, so I carve out time in the summer (and wherever we are) to work on some of these projects. This summer I’ve been working on helping my favorite Harvard Center draft new papers on two fascinating topics: the effects of extreme heat on early childhood development and how understanding the science of heterogeneity (as in, why everyone is different) can change everything for early childhood programs and policies. I’ve also been working with an organization focused on adolescent development and another working to end ageism – so I’ve been thinking about all stages of the age spectrum, which seems appropriate as an older guy who can be a bit of a baby and still harbors teen dreams of rock stardom. And I won’t lie: having a few paychecks come in doesn’t hurt! 

Planning ahead. Not surprisingly, we find it hard to plan for next year’s travels while we’re still in the midst of the current year, so most of that work gets added to the summer pile. Rachel in particular spends a lot of time making sure that we have a place to go when the frost arrives. This year, we’re doing something different: Without ever having been there, we’ve rented a house in Pucon, Chile, for 6 months. And before we get to Chile at the end of October, we have some wonderful, if circuitous, travel ahead of us, with stops in Hawaii (the big island) and Mexico, along with seeing family and friends in Boston, Colorado, and Florida. 

Along the way, we’ve begun to explore excursions in each place (Ride in a helicopter above the volcanoes? Snorkel at night with manta rays? Visit the Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City?) as well as in Chile (cruise to Antarctica? Fly to Easter Island? Trek Patagonia?). We can’t afford to do everything, so which are the must-dos, how would we do them, and what would they cost? There’s still a lot to think about, but none of this happens on its own. Planning it may be a labor of love for Rachel, but it’s still labor.

It’s funny, when we’re kids we have so much freedom but we feel like adults are always telling us what to do. When we are first “on our own” as adults, we feel the exhilaration of newfound freedom—and then reality hits when we have a boss telling us what to do. The hits keep coming when we realize that no one else is going to do all the boring things that keep the wheels of our lives turning. And “adulting” never goes away. When we retire, we lose the boss, but those boring-but-necessary things follow us around wherever we go. 

In truth, when we come back to the States and take care of business, we gain a feeling of accomplishment, of regrouping, of readiness for whatever comes next. It’s a different kind of R&R: Restoration & Renewal. And if some of the chores make us messy and sweaty, we can go jump in the lake!