“The irritation has less to do with 10 to 15 pounds and more to do with knowing I am losing control of my body.”

Water shot out with the force of a fire hydrant. Mr. Feldman, 57, put a hand against the opening, to no avail. “There was no way of stopping it,” he said. “So I did the very macho thing and started shouting for help.”

“I have to connect myself even more,” Mr. Chandler said. “I have a fear of not being connected, of suddenly wanting to bolt. The fear of saying, ‘See you later.’”

“I had a renewed sense of purpose, because I had finally cut out all the bad stuff,” Mr. Nartker said of the new job. “And since I made all those other changes, I had the motivation to push through and go after it. You have to take care of yourself.”

“It’s like I’m trying to find a problem and she is not creating it,” Mr. Dorn said. “I want her to be excited when I give her something, and really overjoyed. And when she doesn’t respond like that, I ask her, ‘Am I in trouble?’ And she says: ‘Why would you think that way? Why would you be in trouble?’”

“I didn’t hate it with a burning passion,” Mr. Schickel, 26, said of his white-collar days, which he left in November 2015. “I was good at my job. I did very well. But it didn’t really excite me. The question was, ‘When I die, do I want to have spent 50 years of my life sitting in an office?’ The answer was no.”

No, it's not 'The Notebook.' It's real life. And it's terrifying and wonderful all at once. 

“You’re like a stranger in the world at that point. Nobody has any expectations. Nobody knows your history. Nobody knows what they want you to do.”

"If you asked me 10 years ago if this was going to be my life, I would have slit my wrists."

“My passion for the last years has been my family,” Mr. Winterhalt said. “So I don’t know what I’m going to do as a job. I don’t have any idea. The world is mine, and that’s a great thing. Do I go back to school? I don’t know. That is a little scary for me.”