About Us, Michael and Catherine
We are creating a written record of this season, to live it well, to remember it, to share it.
We’re Michael and Catherine Benner.
Most of our twenty years of marriage ran on separate schedules. Michael traveled sixty to seventy percent of the time, leading teams and spending his career walking into broken situations and fixing them. I built a life around his absence, my routines, my creative work, my home, my family and friends, and honestly, got good at being on my own.
We loved being together and looked forward to the next season without the noise of careers and business travel.
Retirement arrived, and we found ourselves together every day with no structure, no alarm clock, and no script. All the planning we thought we had done to prepare was not enough.
The adjustment has been harder than expected. Michael spent the first few months looking for something to fix. I spent them wondering why I wasn’t more grateful for something I had waited a long time to arrive. We are still working some of that out, mostly with grace and humor.
Retirement, Unscripted is the record of this season. It is where we pay attention to the days we are actually living, the travel that finally feels like trips instead of vacations, and the conversations that happen because there is now time to stay in them. Much of it is the small things that turn out to matter more than we expected.
Some entries are thoughtful and others are unfinished because we don’t yet know the end. Many are here only because we didn’t want to forget them.
This is not a how to guide for retirement, and we are not offering advice. We are simply telling the stories of our life unscripted. Maybe in the telling we will find that script, maybe we will just live a good life full of love and meaning.
If others find pieces of their own lives reflected here, that’s a gift. But this space exists first as a witness for us, for our family, and for those who may one day want to know how this season was lived.
Life is finding its way. It has not been as easy or as struggle free as we thought it would be. But it is ours, we are grateful for it, and we are paying attention as we travel it together
We pay attention, live with intention, and trust the long work of God in ordinary days
The Threads We Return To
Thoughts on identity, change, and the quiet work of becoming.
Journeys both near and far, shaped by curiosity, conversation, and time to notice.
The quieter threads that anchor our days, belief, memory, and the people we love.