What happens when the life you planned suddenly isn’t the only one possible?
Published on October 4, 2026 – Narrated by Jim
The high-dive line at the Las Palmas public swimming pool was no place for a five-year-old.
I was surrounded by pre-teen torsos, navels, and sharp elbows bumping my head as the big kids pushed and shoved to be next. Still, I held my ground, imagining myself pulling off a Johnny Weissmuller swan dive.
Mom never learned to swim, so my lessons started before kindergarten. I passed every test and had the wristband swag to prove it.
Las Palmas already had a place in family legend. A few weeks earlier, my sister Delores had been crowned “The Pearl Queen” at the Festival of the Pearl, sponsored by the National City Aquatic Club and Recreation Department.
So, as her proud little brother, I may have walked around Las Palmas with more confidence than my five-year-old body could back up.
By late summer, I’d become bored with dazzling the little kids and their mamas with trick dives from the low board. School would start soon, and the high dive was getting harder and harder to ignore.
The big kids ahead of me climbed the ladder with the loose-limbed confidence of chimps at the San Diego Zoo. To me, with my teddy-bear proportions, they looked like another species. Suddenly it was my turn. I hesitated. The girl behind me noticed and grabbed the rung, brushing my hand aside.
“I’m going first, scaredy-cat.”
She wasn’t being mean. She just didn’t want to wait. I was almost relieved to step aside and take a few moments to muster my courage.
Or just head back to the low board.
No. It was now or never.
I pushed her hand aside, and climbed past her, at my own pace, holding the rails tighter and tighter as I looked back over my shoulder at the wet, squinty faces watching every awkward move I made up those sharp-edged steps.
I stepped onto the board and looked out.
Whoa.
I stood level with the playground rocket ship, where the top platform gave me the heebie-jeebies.
The board shook as the kids below scrambled for their turn. I gripped the rails, their voices barely audible above the rush of can-do coursing through my limbs.
Tiny me felt electric and wild.
Looking away from the rocket ship, I focused on the water below, comforting and inviting. I walked to the end of the board, leaned forward before my trembling feet could object…
and my feet left it.
What If?
Carmen and I sat down with our financial advisor, Jeffrey Dunham, for our annual investment review. It was January 2014. The conference room was cool, and fresh coffee and filtered water were waiting on the table when we walked in.
Amy, the Director of Client Services, sat beside us while Jeffrey stood at the projection screen, remote in hand.
He clicked through the charts, expounding on the past, present and future of what he liked to call “our dough.” When he reached a page showing twenty-five years of IRA contributions, he stopped.
“Twenty-one percent of every paycheck.” He nodded at the screen. “Most people don’t have this kind of discipline.”
Jeffrey knew we weren’t rich. As entertainers, we’d learned to sing for our supper until tax reform undermined our school business.
Then, at the cost of every waking moment through the 80s and 90s, we ran a successful little bookstore until big-box stores reshaped the industry.
Like many Generation Jonesers, the economy knocked us around, and we took our lesson well: Don’t get too comfy. The best investment is you.
So we gravitated toward work we loved in the arts and nonprofits, working with people we admired, and had a fabulous couple of decades living modestly in paradise while growing our dough.
Jeffrey clicked to the next chart.
“But you’re still looking at about ten more years of saving.”
Carmen and I sighed, not so much because lifting books for twenty years had made me best friends with my surgeon, but because there was no U-turn where we could go back and make the work any lighter.
Jeffrey studied the screen for a moment. He cocked his head to one side, slowly sat down, turned toward us, smiled, and said, “What if you’re looking at retirement the wrong way?”
A Lot to Chew On
A few minutes later we were walking to Karl Strauss Brewing Company, our traditional follow-up reward for these annual reviews.
The patio overlooked a koi pond where gold and white fish drifted beneath the surface.
We ordered a beer flight before opening the menus, and I remember staring at the waterfall until Carmen finally broke the silence.
“Let me get this straight. Jeffrey said that if we sell our properties, invest the equity, and either buy suitcases or an RV and go on a very long vacation, we could retire now instead of waiting another ten years?”
“Yes. It makes sense, but…”
“…sounds nuts.”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. Houses are expensive. I’ll tell you this, after 41 years of home ownership, I’ve DIYed my last kitchen remodel.”
We sipped our beers, recalling how much personal labor we’d put into our properties over the years, knowing the bank and the next buyer had the most to gain.
Fish glided silently by, flashing like coins beneath the surface.
Menus arrived. We over-ordered lunch because we had a lot to chew on. Reasons it couldn’t work, wouldn’t work, would never work were the highlights, but the possibilities left us speechless.
Stopping mid-bite, Carmen looked at me and said,
“Oh my God. We’re really thinking about this, aren’t we?”
At The Edge
Whenever I remember one, the other follows. A five-year-old boy standing at the end of a high dive, and Carmen and I sitting beside a koi pond, wondering if we’d lost our minds.
These days, I avoid the high dive because even if I survived it, Carmen would kill me.
But I still find myself standing on diving boards.
I’ve never forgotten either of them. Not because of what happened next, but because of that place between fear and excitement, when moving forward and turning back both seem possible.
The first time, I stood alone. Years later, Carmen and I stood there together.
More than twelve years after that lunch — and more than ten years after we finally drove away — I still wonder what our lives would be if we’d opened those menus, finished our beers, and decided Jeffrey had overestimated our can-do spirit.
Maybe every meaningful decision begins the same way. Standing there, wondering whether our feet will leave the board or carry us back to the ladder.
If you would like, share a story about when you had to make a major life changing decision.
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*Photos in this post, unless otherwise noted, were taken and copyrighted by Living in Beauty.
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