We’d barely arrived in Sri Lanka a few days ago when I came across a fascinating example of something I discuss often on this blog: older Americans who are looking beyond traditional ideals of retirement to redefine their lives in compelling ways.
I met Al Sunday at the guest house where Champa and I have been staying near Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo. He’s a retired military helicopter pilot who served in Iraq and elsewhere. He visited Sri Lanka a year and a half ago and fell in love with the country and its people.
While strolling the local beach in Negombo, he began picking up trash. He returned the next day and picked up more, then more. People began helping him. They installed trash cans. They teamed up with the local tourist board and reached out to national officials. The beach got cleaner.
“I’ve been coming here for 15 years and the beach is the cleanest I’ve ever seen,” I heard another guest, Dennis, above left, tell Al.
Recently approved for Sri Lankan residency, Al explains that “we wear these ridiculous, bodacious yellow T-shirts and people see what we’re doing.” His whimsical retirement effort has become a small local movement.
Al still makes time to work as a dive instructor, travel, be a father to four adult children and return regularly to a cabin in western Maryland. But his Coast Clean project is now central to his identity, the highlight of a simple foreign life he can afford with a military pension and other resources.
“How much money do you really need?” he asks. “A lot of my friends say they wish they could do what I’m doing but they have too much stuff. Well, the old saying is true. You can own things or they can own you.
“It’s really not that hard to make a change like this if you just jump in. You can start with baby steps.”
I was impressed by Al’s project, which you can follow on Instagram, and even more by his example of grabbing life during this “not exactly retired” phase that millions of us are trying to figure out. At a moment when I’ve been feeling unmoored by what’s happening back home, Al Sunday reminded me that we can still redirect our own lives, pursue adventure and try to help others.
It was something I needed to hear, a welcome lesson at Sunday’s school. I came to Sri Lanka and heard the best kind of trash talking.
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"Not Exactly Retired" 