UnRetiring: Surprising Stories of a New Generation

Leaping into new adventures

A year ago this month, I “retired”  from  my lifelong career in newspapers. I left filled with the anxiety common to my generation.

What would I do? Who would I be?

Like a move to a new city, people said, “Give it two years. You’re in transition.”

To what? And why wait?

I decided to do what journalists do: I began to interview others who were going through what I was going through – the transition from career to what I call the “next great thing.”

 And because I cringe at the word “retired,” I called my blog “UnRetiring.”

This new stage of life is in the spotlight now. It’s new because so many people are living healthy so much longer. Just as adolescence now seems to stretch to age 30 or so, “middle age” is creeping into Medicare land. And it’s exploding because the Boomers, the oldest of whom are 66, are now stepping into it.

Over the year, I have been surprised by the ways people are reinventing themselves as well as by their range of emotions.

I’ve talked with people who feel guilty if they’re not somehow contributing to bettering the world. And others who feel totally guilt-free, thrilled to be mostly just improving themselves. I’ve learned how much harder it is to enter this stage of life if you were forced out of the old one through a downsizing; the ego bruising lingers on. And I’ve laughed a lot, learning about late love affairs and unlikely leaps.

Speaking of leaps, I’ve been advised to be mindful of plunging in and to learn to say “no.” Instead, in exploration mode,  I’ve said “yes” to almost every idea that’s come my way, creating exhaustion and exhilaration.

Rick Cooper -- playing with locks

The number of people who worry for years about leaving their careers, even as they crave doing so, surprised me. I don’t know why it surprised me, since I endlessly had the same debate with myself – until I finally left, after 30 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer. .

Once on the other side, I found that organizations have sprung up around the country to help people who want meaning in their lives to find ways to do so. And I’ve also found people in transition eager to talk-- one on one, in small living room groups, and through this blog.

Today, in the first installment for philly.com, I’ll share the story of Rick Cooper, a New Hampshire locksmith I met by chance one dark and dreary night. My interviews will run daily through this Friday, then weekly on Mondays
http://unretiring.blogspot.com/2012/07/rick-rescues-damsel-in-distress.html

Read past interviews and get a glimpse of Dotty Brown’s own transition over the past year at www.unRetiring.blogspot.com

Moving on from my "mid-life career"

I hate the word “retired.”  Ditto “retirement.”

“How are you enjoying retirement?” friends ask me, not understanding that I am busier than ever reinventing myself.

So, today I checked the dictionary to see if my repulsion is justified by the word’s meaning.

Yes, indeed! According to the American Heritage Dictionary,  retire  means “1) To withdraw, as for rest or seclusion; 2) To go to bed; 3).To withdraw from one’s occupation, business or office; stop working. 4) To fall back or retreat, as from battle” and so on.

More interestingly – and in step with how the boomers are redefining a step-back from career --  the dictionary goes on to give some background on the word retire.

“Despite the upbeat books written about retiring and the fact that it is a well-earned time of relaxation from the daily rigors of work, many people do not find it a particularly pleasant prospect. Perhaps the etymology of retire may hint at why. The ultimate source of our word is the Old French word retirer, made up of the prefix re -- , meaning in this case 'back' and the verb tirer, 'to draw,' together meaning 'to take back or withdraw.'…It is not until 1667 that we find the word used to mean ‘to withdraw from a position for more leisure.' "

Tirer, the dictionary goes on to say, “ultimately may be from the Old French martir, 'a martyr,' probably reflecting the fact that martyrs had to endure the torture of being stretched up to and beyond the point of dislocating their bones.”

Well, my job was never a bone-pulling event,. I loved it! though my husband sometimes complained about the dislocation of our family when I came home late.

So, a plethora of phrases  are now being invented to describe ‘unretirement,” including “encore careers,” “third age careers, and “second adulthood.”

Similarly, new organizations are seeking to harness this explosion of people with energy and (supposedly) time, including Coming of Age,  and Civic Ventures, which runs Encore Careers which, amazingly, links you to “encore fellowships.” 

The fellowships link people at the “end of their midlife careers with social-purpose organizations.”

Hey, I like that. I’m just winding up my “midlife career” and embarking on the next…..

A Never-Say-Die Mystery Writer

What, you might ask, does  Italian mystery writer Andrea Camilleri have to do with a blog called “Unretiring”?

Apparently, Camilleri himself is unretiring, having written about 20 books since plunging into mystery writing at age 69. (He's now 86)

“He’s an example of what you can do,”  said Peter Rozovsky,  a copy editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer on one of my last days at work. Foolishly thinking I might have some leisure time on my hands, I’d dropped by Rozovsky’s desk to get a list of his favorite mystery writers, since he writes the blog http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/.

Camilleri’s protagonist, the workaholic Inspector Salvo Montalbano, is totally at loose ends when it comes to free time, which is why, I’m guessing, Camilleri himself can’t stop working either.

Here’s an insight into Camilleri’s dilemma – and that of so many of us fearful of leaving longtime careers– from his book,  “The Wings of the Sphinx”:

The Sicilian police inspector Montalbano, is debating with himself over his ability to enjoy a few days off:

“Yes, he could take advantage of them to –"

“To do what? Montalbano One suddenly asked. Would you please tell me exactly what you know how to do other than your job? You eat, shit, sleep, read a few novels, and every now and then you go to the movies. And that’s it. You don’t like to travel, you don’t go in for sports, you have no hobbies, and when you come right down to it, you don’t even have any friends with whom to spend a few hours."

“What is this bullshit, anyway? Montalbano Two intervened polemically. He goes for longer swims than an Olympic champion and you’re telling me he doesn’t go in for sports?"

“Swimming doesn’t count. What counts are genuine, serious interests, the kind that enrich and give meaning to a man’s life."

“Oh, yeah? Give me one example of these ‘interests’! Gardening? Collecting stamps?"

Jonah's rendering of UnRetiring

Needing a change from looking at my photo, I commissioned Jonah, 8, to reimagine my blog's name.

What do you think? Should I sub this for the red dress photo?

"I forgot to re-tire my tires!"

David Broida discovers a new passion

By the time that  David Broida turned 62, he'd been director of the Upper Merion Parks and Recreation Department for 32 years. He was ready to move on.  "I wanted to explore new things," he says, and  "the incentive of Social Security helped on the money side." Not that he hasn't been exploring things his whole life. Broida created and ran the Upper Merion Music Festival for 23 years, raised thousands of dollar for AIDS research, volunteers at homeless shelters, and serves on the board of  Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis in Philadelphia,  which focuses on under-resourced families  http://www.ashetennis.org/.  And I know I've left out a lot, including  that he’s a musician who regularly jams with friends. 

David and I rode our bikes through West Philadelphia the other day – a winding route that took us past abandoned tennis courts, cracked with weeds. "For $100,000 all these courts could be fixed," said Broida, who has collected coats from the lost-and-founds of suburban schools and donated them to kids in the city. Later on, we rode through the University of Pennsylvania’s $46.5 million dollar new PennPark, where the tennis courts, with bleachers, could host a mini-Wimbledon.

New Courts At PennPark

Weedy Courts, 52nd and Wyalusing

Over coffee,  we talked about his journey. David’s  best advice is to “do something different.”

He stepped into his “retirement” fairly typically:

“For  the first two months, I just cleaned up the house a little. I really didn't do anything. I just read. .. rode my bike, played tennis. I just played.”

Then, something happened that lit his fire. As a former administrator, responsible for budgets and the like, he didn’t want to do that again. But when the Shipley School suddenly had an opening for a tennis instructor, he signed on.

“I was lucky” he explains. That led to a new career teaching tennis in public and private programs, still leaving him time for his myriad other interests, including launching the Bryn Mawr Twilight concerts, which run each weekend in summer.

“My advice for myself was just to follow my interests.  … What's really nice is to do something completely different from what you've been doing.”

Send me your story, or suggestions of folks to interview at dottyinky@gmail.com