The Move To Florida
Since this is my career journey to retirement, I can’t leave out personal life events that are part of the story. In 2013, I got divorced. By 2014, I met someone online, one of the benefits of the internet.
I had recently asked my boss if I could work in the Tampa office, which was great since the woman I met wanted to move back to the States from Brazil. More on that later, since I’m a lost Brazilian. Also, my daughter wanted to go back for her master’s in Tampa. Chase had an office in Tampa, but it wasn’t something people usually did. I asked, and they said I could, but I had to pay my own way.
This became a journey none of us would ever do again. We made the drive down: me, my future wife, and future son in one car; my daughter and mother in another car with seven cats; my son and a friend in a truck with two dogs; and my dad driving the U-Haul with everything we owned. We were off to Florida to start a new life, in the same company and job. The drive took two and a half days, and it was tough, but we got there, settled in, and built our life. In 2015, we got married, and we bought a townhome. Everything was going great.
During this time, I made my first of several trips to Brazil and fell in love with the country, the people, and my new extended family. I wanted more of that. This shaped my thinking over the next ten years working in Florida.
I spent ten years at JPMChase in Florida, and over seventeen years total by the time I retired in 2024. I can’t say enough about how much I loved working there and the people. However, before retirement, there was one more big event: COVID-19.
I was the first person on the team to work from home. My manager said I would start a two-week trial run, and then everyone would rotate for two weeks to test our contingency plans. At the end of the first week, I was told to stay home, and soon everyone was working from home. I stayed home for almost two years, from 2020 to 2022. It was interesting at first, but by 2023, I really wanted to go back to the office, and that slowly happened with a hybrid schedule. It also meant we hadn’t been to Brazil in a few years. I was seriously thinking about retirement as I approached 60.
Next, the last phase, retirement, and Brazil
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