{"id":714,"date":"2025-04-07T01:13:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T01:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thislifeofriley.com\/?p=714"},"modified":"2025-04-07T01:29:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T01:29:58","slug":"welcome-to-this-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thislifeofriley.com\/?p=714","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to \u2018This Life\u2019."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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This is me<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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<\/p>\n

Hey there. I\u2019m Riley\u2014if you\u2019ve made it here, you probably already figured that out. I\u2019m 36 years old (37 is coming fast), and I\u2019m here because I\u2019ve decided to start over. Completely.<\/p>\n

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You could call it a rebirth, a reinvention, or maybe just a long-overdue escape. Either way, this is my new beginning.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve spent most of my life in a tiny town in Wisconsin\u2014so small, I jokingly call it the Bermuda Triangle of the Midwest. To many, it\u2019s a beautiful place to live. And I get it. There are people who are genuinely happy there, and I respect that. But I\u2019ve always wanted something more. Something bigger. Something that place could never give me.<\/p>\n

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Door County, Wisconsin, where I grew up, is steeped in history, tradition, and deep-rooted families who love keeping things just the way they\u2019ve always been. Ephraim, one of the towns there, was known for being the last \u201cdry town\u201d in the United States. You couldn\u2019t even get a beer there until recently. People celebrated that fact\u2014still do, actually. It\u2019s the kind of place that got the iPhone ten years late and didn\u2019t get fast, reliable internet until Starlink came around and embarrassed the local providers into modernizing. That\u2019s the pace of change in Door County\u2014glacial, and often met with resistance.<\/p>\n

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The mindset there? Outdated. Comfortably stuck in the past. Businesses running on point-of-sale systems from the early 2000s, refusing to upgrade because it would mean spending time and energy\u2014something they had plenty of in the off-season, but couldn\u2019t be bothered to use. It was a strange, backwards place to work and live in.<\/p>\n

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And the people? Predictable. Uninspired. I could probably tell you where almost anyone in town is sitting at this exact moment, what beer they\u2019re drinking, and what they\u2019re complaining about. Spoiler: it\u2019s probably tourists. You know, the very people who make it possible for them to live there in the first place. But that irony seems lost on most of them.<\/p>\n

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I was already creating art at my job, but not the kind I was interested in.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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I needed more. More color, more energy, more life. Door County is grey and brown for 75% of the year. Some folks are okay with that. I\u2019m not. I need fire, not ash.<\/p>\n

So in 2024, as the world started to move past COVID but still reeled from burnout, I reached my breaking point. I had a well-paying job\u2014part owner of a retail business with five storefronts and a sixth framing shop off the beaten path (which, surprise, was the only one I enjoyed). But the toxic environment, the outdated practices, the coworkers stuck in cycles of negativity and mediocrity\u2014it all just\u2026 broke me. My body started rejecting it. I was exhausted, mentally and physically, and not from working hard\u2014just from existing in that space.<\/p>\n

Eventually, someone said, \u201cJust leave. You\u2019re a dread to be around.\u201d That was my cue. No argument. No dramatic exit. I just walked away. And I\u2019ve never looked back.<\/p>\n

So, what now? What does a 36-year-old, jobless ex-retail guy do?<\/p>\n

He creates.<\/p>\n

I want to tell stories. I want to travel, feel alive, chase beauty, and experience culture. I want to meet people who inspire me, eat food that surprises me, and capture moments that remind me what it\u2019s like to be here, now, and awake.<\/p>\n

And I want to share that with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Life of Riley\u201d is about that leap. It\u2019s about starting over in the middle of your life\u2014not because you failed, but because you refused to settle. But the name isn\u2019t just about me. The real emphasis is on This Life. Because we each get one. And whether you\u2019re 36 or 66, stuck or just starting to feel the itch\u2014there\u2019s still time to make it something beautiful.<\/p>\n

So, here we go. Let\u2019s see what happens when you stop waiting for the \u201cright time\u201d and finally choose to live this life.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is me Hey there. I\u2019m Riley\u2014if you\u2019ve made it here, you probably already figured that out. I\u2019m 36 years old (37 is coming fast), and I\u2019m here because I\u2019ve decided to start over. Completely. You could call it a rebirth, a reinvention, or maybe just a long-overdue escape. Either way, this is my new<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"solace_meta_sidebar":"","solace_meta_container":"","solace_meta_enable_content_width":"","solace_meta_content_width":0,"solace_meta_title_alignment":"","solace_meta_author_avatar":"","solace_post_elements_order":"","solace_meta_disable_header":"","solace_meta_disable_footer":"","solace_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,7],"tags":[12,13,10,9,14],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-free","category-midlife-reinvention","category-personal-journey","tag-authentic-living","tag-burnout-recovery","tag-escaping-small-town-life","tag-starting-over-at-36","tag-travel-and-transformation"],"yoast_head":"\nWelcome to \u2018This Life\u2019. - This Life of Riley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thislifeofriley.com\/?p=714\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Welcome to \u2018This Life\u2019. - This Life of Riley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is me Hey there. I\u2019m Riley\u2014if you\u2019ve made it here, you probably already figured that out. I\u2019m 36 years old (37 is coming fast), and I\u2019m here because I\u2019ve decided to start over. Completely. You could call it a rebirth, a reinvention, or maybe just a long-overdue escape. 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I\u2019m Riley\u2014if you\u2019ve made it here, you probably already figured that out. I\u2019m 36 years old (37 is coming fast), and I\u2019m here because I\u2019ve decided to start over. Completely. You could call it a rebirth, a reinvention, or maybe just a long-overdue escape. 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