Let's talk about health

Sure, how are you doing?

I’m glad you asked!

Physically, I think I may be in as good a shape as I’ve ever been. Certainly since college.

While I recognize that weight is not a great indicator of health, it is part of the overall picture. It’s also easy to track and it’s something I’ve been tracking on and off since January 2005. Over nearly 19 years, I have recorded my weight 437 times so far.¹

On June 19, 2022, three days before our move to Lisbon, I weighed 70.58 kg (155.6 lbs).

Six months later, on December 26, 2022, I weighed 64.50 kg (142.2 lbs).

This calendar year, I’ve recorded my weight seven times. Five of those weights are the five lowest I’ve ever recorded and the remaining two are in next group of five.

Three weeks ago, I weighed 62.69 kg (138.2 lbs), the lowest on record.

The four pairs of jeans that I brought from the US? They literally fall off of my body unless I wear a belt.²

The t-shirts I bought when we arrived without any luggage? The ones I was worried would shrink in the wash and be too small to wear? They shrank in the wash. They are not too small to wear.

It's not just the weight, though, that makes me say I’m in good shape. We live about 2/3 of the way up a steep hill. It is difficult to walk more than about 300 meters³ without going up or down a significant incline⁴. Six months of this has sculpted my legs, and I have continued my morning stretch and balance exercises that I started in the US. Over the last several weeks I’ve added pushups to that routine and gradually increased the number I do. I am now doing two sets of 40 pushups each. I have never in my life done 80 pushups in a day much less for several consecutive days. My arms and chest have curves and lines I’ve never seen before.

Other than permanent but minor left foot and lower leg issues from a pickleball injury a few years back, I am feeling fit and strong.

So you’re healthy! That’s gr-

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold your horses. I didn’t say I was healthy.

But you said -

I said that physically I’m feeling fit and strong. And while that’s certainly not nothing, it’s also not the entire picture.

Let’s talk about mental health

Um, ok. You first.

That’s fair.

Bluntly, October was a real struggle.

I haven’t had what I would call a good night’s sleep in weeks. I’ve frequently been irritable and short-tempered. My mind spins anxiously, seemingly nearly constantly.

And it’s hard to admit that. Because by any conventional measure, I’m living the dream:

• I’m happily married for 26 years

• I’m child-free by choice

• I had a fulfilling career that I managed to save up enough money to retire early from

• I’m 52, fit and strong, and living in a beautiful, vibrant European capital.

Somebody please pinch me.

Yet for most of October, I struggled daily to find a reason to get out of bed.

Well, ok, that’s not exactly true. I get out of bed at 7:30 every morning to walk Josie. In fact, my morning routine is the highlight of my day. In addition to the exercises above, I pray, meditate, read the Bible, and generally have some quiet time to myself.

The problem is that after about 9:30 am, I’ve got … nothing. Or at least very little.

Transitions in life are hard. And we’ve been through a lot of ‘em lately.

The first six months we were here we were basically underwater. Amy was in pretty deep; I was barely keeping my nose and mouth above the surface.

The next three months were about deciding to stay. The three months after that were about finding a place to buy and buying it. Then we spent a couple of months furnishing the apartment and breaking it in with some housewarming parties.

Now, there’s no “project” on the docket. We’ve settled into our lives here. And I’m suddenly staring down my biggest transition of them all. The one I’ve managed to avoid since June, 2022.

I’m retired.

May 26, 2022

I’m actually really surprised at how little I miss the work. I’m also surprised at how much that work gave me that I don’t have anymore: A routine. A variety of people to interact with every day. Puzzles to solve. Things to think about. Conversations. Laughter.

The feeling that maybe, just a little bit, around the edges, I might be making a difference.

A couple of years ago, when I first started seriously entertaining the idea of retiring early, I thought about how I would spend my time. I made a list of things I would do. It was reasonably lengthy.

Back then, moving to Portugal wasn’t on the radar.

Now that we’re here, I’m realizing just how much of that list was not only US-specific, but St. Louis-specific. Particular organizations I would volunteer or work part time at. Specific places I would go, things I would do.

Several weeks ago, I was feeling particularly low and looking at my basically empty calendar. I made the connection between the two states and knew I had to act. So I asked a friend if there was a website here that aggregated volunteer opportunities.

Lo and behold, there is! What a great resource! After a fair amount of research (much of which consisted of translating dozens of listings into English), it became clear that there are mainly two types of gigs:

1. those involving mostly manual labor – packing bags of “ugly fruit,” packaging food items recovered from restaurants and grocery stores to be delivered to those in need …

2. those requiring a level of proficiency in Portuguese that I am not close to.

Yep. I’m an immigrant.

There was one place that seems to be an exception to the above. The Lisbon Project (LP) is a non-profit organization affiliated with our church. They work with migrants and refugees to help them acclimate to life in Portugal. They sponsor social and cultural activities to encourage community, offer Portuguese language classes, provide legal guidance around visa and work issues, assist with skill-building to help job seekers find employment, among other things.

They work mostly in English and are almost entirely volunteer run. Their website listed an opening for a volunteer “Professional Skills Guide,” which sounded like a pretty good match for my experience helping high school students take their next step in life. It’s adults looking for jobs, but the broad outlines are the same: one-on-one tailored advice, helping create and tweak CVs/resumes, interview coaching.

Stuff I’ve done before and, if I do say so myself, am pretty good at.

Excellent! Maybe I can be of use to someone again! On October 1, I filled out an application.

Here was the auto-reply:

I thought the “hopefully” was a particularly nice touch.

In an effort not to fritter the month of October away, I reached out to the church to see if there was anything I could to help out either there or with the restaurant LP just started staffing.

Turns out the dishwasher at the restaurant was broken … any chance I could come in and wash dishes until it’s fixed?

Beggars, choosers … sure. Absolutely I can wash dishes.

As October crept slowly along, I:

• started medication to help with anxiety and to help me sleep

• had an experience of overwhelming anxiety (my doctor warned me that after starting the medication the anxiety might get worse before it got better … it seems to have done)

• had intermittent heart palpitations.

The good news is that things are looking up.

In the midst of all of the above, I also:

• learned important lessons about the role of God in my life (front and center, always) and the value of supportive human relationships

• started volunteering at church to prepare and run the slides during services

• continue to feel as though I am making progress learning Portuguese, something that is very important to me

• developed a “mental health toolkit” to help me through more challenging moments and, relatedly, I am listening to more music both as I travel the streets of Lisbon and as I work on my computer

• had an interview with LP and was offered that volunteer position

• offered to facilitate a November 30 LP workshop on Interview Preparation and Communication Skills and was gratified when they changed the time so I could both lead it and make my Portuguese class later that afternoon even though they had yet to actually meet me and understand what I am capable of

• started making an effort to take longer walks/hikes, including getting into Monsanto, a wonderful park in the middle of Lisbon (think Central Park or Forest Park) for the first time.

I can’t say I’m completely out of the October doldrums yet but I am definitely on the upswing emotionally and I am looking forward to better days still to come.

That’s all for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Scott (and Amy)

1. What can I say? I’m a data geek.

2. And then Amy moans that they don’t look good. *rolling eyes*

3. Less than .2 miles.

4. The kind of incline that if it was on a highway, they would show the grade and provide emergency ramps in case your brakes fail.