This week took an interesting turn from prior weeks. The start to the week was not the best for me physically, but my mental state has been just about the opposite of an existential crisis. I guess you would call it existential flourishing. The power of ample free time is revealing itself to me as I’ve been dedicating more time to rekindling and maintaining friendships. It’s a noticeable behavior shift from my working days. This is detailed in day 84 below.

FIRE: Day 78 (9/14)

Today was not my best day after drinking yesterday. I went to the gym but didn’t do my full typical workout.

I went to Kohls and bought a few shirts and some gym shorts.

FIRE: Day 79 (9/15)

JC subbed at BC’s school this morning; not in his class.

I went back to Kohls to return one shirt, and to get the anti-theft tag taken off another one. When I walked in the security gate beeped because of the tag. It must have done that when I bought it as well, but if it did I didn’t hear it. The employees weren’t suspicious of me at all. I guess I have that going for me – not looking like a criminal.

After Kohls I went to the gym and got in a full workout. I came home and did my HIIT/core rounds as well, and was pretty wiped out the rest of the day.

In the cost per calorie series I made a new post for breakfast burritos. I need to track down some prices though, and I’m stuck until I go to Costco. Usually I can find prices on their website, but they don’t have a couple of the items on there.

FIRE: Day 80 (9/16)

After Spanish this morning I took a nap. Spanish often makes me sleepy, but I’m feeling pretty run down today on top of it.

Another old coworker reached out, so we scheduled coffee for next week to catch up. He is way up the corporate ladder from me, but we ended up having a lot of direct interaction over the years. It feels more like a peer relationship than the corporate chart would indicate. With me no longer working, there is no corporate chart anyway.

I watched some videos on software factories using AI agents. In one they were using a code evaluation tool called Greptile that Claude Code can integrate with. I set that up for YAL just to try it out, although I’ll probably disable it after the free trial.

FIRE: Day 81 (9/17)

JC and I were both feeling kind of like crap today. I slept great last night, 85 sleep score, but I just feel off and achey today. At the gym I couldn’t do leg press because even the warm up weight made my legs hurt.

We were thinking about going on a hike, but didn’t feel up to it. I started to do some tech stuff but ran out of Claude credits. Instead I wrote a cost per calorie post about breakfast burritos.

FIRE: Day 82 (9/18)

I was back to feeling pretty good today, and got a full workout in at the gym. Also I worked on some changes to YAL.

I have been binging an HBO documentary series over the past few days that a friend in the neighborhood recommended. It is called Q: Into The Storm. Somehow the topic of Qanon came up while we were watching football. I had read a book by Robert Guffey about Qanon, and he had watched this documentary, so we were comparing notes.

BC and I were alone for the night since the girls went to The Outsiders Musical. We watched Trent The Traveler instead of a movie.

FIRE: Day 83 (9/19)

My run went really well today, a new record pace since getting back, and maybe even in the last few years.

Through the day I pushed out changes to YAL that I’ve been working on. Nothing really noticeable as a user, just deep linking to allow me to directly access specific prompts. I also used this to test a new step in my development pipeline using Greptile.

In the evening we went out to the cul-de-sac for what I guess was a goodbye gathering for our neighbors that are moving. It only lasted about 20 minutes while they lit off some fireworks, and then everyone went in. It was strange.

FIRE: Day 84 (9/20)

I spent most of the day watching football and monitoring my fantasy team. JC made some homemade giant pretzels which were really good.

Last night yet another old coworker from way back texted me out of the blue about getting together next Friday. I last worked with him 16 years ago, although we have seen each other occasionally since then. This will be the sixth old coworker I have gotten together with since getting back to the US. Soon it will be seven when I go hunting with another friend from this same way-back job.

It has been great to have a surplus of free time to the point that I have said yes to all of these chances to hang out with friends. In my working days I was often blocked from doing things like this simply because I was busy with work. On top of that, when I wasn’t occupied with work I often had other obligations to attend to which were put off because of work. During those years I always prioritized family time because that was the most important use of the very little free time I had.

In my new world I really feel like I can prioritize everything. There is more time for my family, time for friends, and time for whatever other weird crap comes up. I can binge a documentary series just because a friend mentioned it. I can listen to another friend’s hour long synth mashup twice in one day.

I’m consciously taking note of these upsides of FIRE because they are opening my eyes to how amazing our life is. Without work draining my time and stressing me out, my connections with people are thriving. I’m not naive enough to think my existential crises are over, but I am welcoming this competing mental state of existential flourishing.