Actor Ruth Gordon said, “To be somebody, you must last.” Since many of us expect to have twenty or thirty or more good years ahead, why do we have anticipation angst about retiring from our primary careers and moving on to something else?

When Christine Millen, at fifty-seven, was planning early retirement from her career as a business consultant to global corporations, she remembers asking everyone she knew how they spent their days as retirees. She wanted detailed explanations: “So after you wake up and shower, you begin reading the newspaper. Okay, how long does that take? And then what do you do? And after you’ve been to the gym for your workout, what do you do next?” No amount of explicit information about how others spent their time assuaged her concern over whether she could replace the dynamic, high-energy, intellectually challenging career she loved.

Work gets us out of the house at a certain hour each weekday. Work also dictates how we structure our time, how we manage personal and household chores, what we do with family and friends and when, and why we decide to do certain things and put off others. Work is our identity, our label. It is how we reveal ourselves when we meet others for the first time; it is our defining elevator speech. Telling someone that we teach college math, or direct a project for the government, is shorthand for what we can do, who we know, and how we fit into the general scheme of adulthood. What will we do when we no longer have such a label to fall back upon? And, how will we think about ourselves?

Catherine plans to retire from teaching when she is sixty, and she admits to feeling a “little nervous” about the idea. Self described as “not an artsy-craftsy person,” she is worried about what she will do. During the previous summer she took an education course, but that still left her with too much free time. “I don’t know what will turn me on besides my regular job. I’m having trouble finding a passion.”

On top of feeling pressure to find our passion, we believe that everybody else who retires is going on to bigger, better, more inspirational things than we are, like being on the board of a foundation to create world peace. That’s one pretty tough standard to aspire to as we try to identify a postretirement life, and too easily sets us up for failure if our goals are anything less than saving the world.

And as we contemplate our transition-to-retirement navel, we also fear becoming isolated. Work means other people—a community where we share small talk and find companionship. Even if our coworkers, patients, clients, or customers are not close friends, they engage and stimulate us, and we reciprocate. Complicated or easy, these relationships are a key part of what we think about and participate in at work. Mostly it’s banter and gossip. But that is the very stuff that lets us know we have others’ support, can count on their feedback, and have the emotional IQ to survive. If we retire from this work community, we worry about losing these connections. That’s because we know they will not be easy to replace.

Most of us hate the word “retirement.” Any dictionary definition implies that retirement is a time for us to find a spot in which to curl up and die. Without consciously thinking about it, we hear and see “tired” in the word. Absolutely nothing about the word instills optimism or enthusiasm.

Retirement 2.0 is as flexible and creative as our imaginations can make it. It may be all things at the same time or something we do in successive chunks. As retirees we may have an encore job or career, and go back to school, and contribute time and skills to a nonprofit or governmental organization, and go to art exhibits, and lunch with friends, and care for a frail parent. It is a shifting state through which we may pass in and out. It can be a period when we actively pursue a singular passion or combine a variety of interests and commitments. As retirees we can take a break from work and then become a returning retiree. We may donate our services as a volunteer and possibly receive a small stipend for our time and skills. Or we can take a seasonal job and retire again as the weather turns beautiful. Retirement is a changeable state that integrates education, work, and leisure, defined in terms that suit us. Let’s just get past our aversion to the word and use it to mean what we want it to mean.

This kind of transition is new to us as well as to the experts. Since we are without guidelines or role models to conjure up from the past, it can leave us feeling isolated and adrift. The process of tackling this distinct transitional stage puts us in new territory. We know we need to prepare but are uncertain about how to do it or whether it is even possible. As we examine others going through transitions, we see that a variety of role models are out there just doing it. Sure, we can seek practical advice from emerging experts, but the truth is that we must give equal weight to our own thoughtful insights that emerge as we talk to other women and as we observe women who are a few steps ahead of us in the transition process.

Copyright © 2008 by The Transition Network, Inc. Excerpted with permission from the book, “Smart Women Don’t Retire – They Break Free,” by The Transition Network and Gail Rentsch, published by Springboard Press.

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