On Death-Defying Feats

Jane von Bergen: tackling 60

Scaling heights. Or rather, descending them. 31 flights down the side of a building in a harness, hand over hand on a rope.  That's what my former colleague at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jane von Bergen, decided to do to prove -- mostly to herself -- that at age 60, she was willing still to take on new challenges.

It's what so many people in my 'unretiring' universe are choosing to do, even as they move well past 60. They do not "pull back," as the word "retire" actually means. They push forward, trying new things. Not always physical, but sometimes. I started this blog to test and grow the tech skills I felt I would need to stay current as the years passed, if not in the vanguard. A recent vacation to northern Peru and the Amazon found people tackling travel  to remote places for the sheer thrill of the adventure. Even fishing for piranha.

Others have left careers to put their skills to use in new venues. The other day Sharon Greis, a former speech therapist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told me that she had surmounted new challenges as  a professor at La Salle University. "I was nervous about supervising students who were working with children with a variety of speech disorders that I had not worked with in many years," she said. "But I did it."

Susan Orkin is pushing herself to take her piano playing to a new level and even went to music camp this summer. She calls it a journey of "learning and self improvement."
And so it goes.
Jane von Bergen, writing of her experience, seems way too young to be saying: "Not dead yet."
Jane, my dear, you could easily have another 30 years ahead of you. Think of all the stunts you'll have time for. You can even jump out of an airplane at 100, like Eleanor Cunningham, who took up skydiving at 90.
Readers of this blog: share your story of challenging yourself and why you do it.
Send me an email and I'll post it..  dottyinky@gmail.com

Taking the Fork in the Road

 

               When you come to a fork….                    Courtesy fallforward.wordpress.com

If you had been a fly on the wall, listening to our discussion, you might have come away with this conclusion:

Finding a new path after leaving a longtime career is a bit like hiking in a forest with few trail markers -- and no GPS.

You know that any trail will take you through interesting scenery, but which one to choose? Walking through the forest with some buddies lends support to your decision. Also helpful is not worrying about the destination.

As they say, “It’s about the journey.”

Or as Yogi Berra said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it."

Thirteen of us recently chewed over this transition issue, each sharing insights and experience.  Judy, a U.S. bankruptcy judge is retiring in five months and just getting over the “terror” of that prospect; Margit, an entrepreneur who loves running a small company is contemplating a different challenge; Sharon and Cece, who had full time jobs when our Project Renewment group first met, worked up the courage to drop to part-time; Essie, a hearing specialist, Tobi, a scientist; Jean, a business school instructor, and Barbara, who carries huge responsibility in a large non-profit, still love their work, but want a glimpse of what’s around the bend.

Three others (Carol, Carole and Shellie) left their careers years ago and have considerable experience if not expertise in what’s on the other side.

As for me, now two years out, I’m plunging ahead on many fronts – and feeling a bit lost in the woods.

On the pull of work, aka "I don't clean, cook, shop…."

Margit, for one, has never spent time at home and doesn’t relish the idea of doing so. “My whole life, I got up in the morning and went to work. I took a month off when I had my kids,” she said. “I do nothing around the house. I don’t clean, cook, shop, nothing. I never have. I get no enjoyment out of that. I don’t know what the next phase will look like…I need to figure out what will even appeal to me. I don’t know what I want.”

For Essie, Thanksgiving with 30 people reinforced her determination to keep working pretty much full time. “I was so glad to go back to work on Monday and it wasn’t because I was tired.” The holidays, she said, “were  a long time at home.” On the other hand, work offers  “a place to go. I have an excuse to be out of the house, to have a routine, to have this definition of time where I’m supposed to be somewhere and I don’t have to be home looking at all this sh--. That I don’t like to do. And I get paid for it. I like to get paid for what I do. What’s wrong with that?”

Yes, concurred Cece, “There’s security about being able to get up and go to the office.” At work, “you’re focused.”  

The prospect of losing that focus – and identity --  is what brought Judy, a bankruptcy judge who has “loved every minute of it” for 28 years, to our meeting.

“I am retiring May 16. Gulp. The terror I feel about getting up in the morning without getting dressed up and walking out the door,  I’ve sort of gotten over that, I think. I’m excited about prospects and certainly that’s why I’m here.” Still, she said, it’s about “your identity.”

“You’ve had a working life all these years and you’re intertwined with that.”

Why the fear of leaving work? 

 “We grew up thinking we had to push, we had to achieve,” said Marlyn, a  psychologist. What effect does that early conditioning have in terms of how we face the rest of our lives? The fear of not doing something. The fear of finding something that you think is really meaningful. I think you’re dealing with some really ingrained issues.”

Taking baby steps into the thicket

Said Sharon, a speech pathologist: “What really helped me the most was that I began thinking about the process.” Sharon decided she wanted to retire from the hospital where she worked, “but I didn’t want to retire from working. I loved what I did and felt that I had reached a certain level of experience and expertise and I wanted to keep doing it.” Through planning, she was able to piece together two days a week of work – one teaching and the other seeing patients. “I still feel that I’m contributing and doing something that I love, but I’m no longer rushing.”

Margit, the entrepreneur: “I think we’re talking about doing the kind of work that we find meaningful. A number of people here work in therapy type situations. They work one on one with individuals and their satisfaction is from helping a given individual. Others of us are helping a system or a community.” Either way, she said, satisfaction comes from being “in a

dynamic situation that’s alive and where you can play an important role.”

Still, the trick is to find the venue for that satisfaction. “It’s almost as if we want people to ‘show me THE road,’ but there isn’t one road.”

To quote my neighbor, Ellen, a later-age artist enjoying increasing success and too busy to come to the meeting: “Retiring is like job hunting. You have to go out and research it,” she said. “You network, you meet with people, you figure it out.  If anybody is sitting around feeling like there’s nothing to do, they’re not trying.”

Is there a roadmap? Or just blind turns? 

“Change is the new norm,” said Jean, a business school instructor. “So we can assume that we will not go forward on a straight trajectory, but we’re changing according to what our situation is at the time and maybe that won’t stop.”

Echoing the notion of change,  Margit said,
“I think we look at retirement as a time when we’re going to do The Thing, but maybe I’ll do something for two years and then I’ll lose interest in that and find something that excites me more. I like the idea of approaching it  like looking for a job. But reinventing yourself multiple times.”

Now, the conversation turned my previous blog about Wisty Rorabacher, a woman who transplanted herself from the Ozarks to Greenfield, Mass. Her walk in the woods – a fast-paced jog, actually -- was particularly exciting. Without a roadmap, she just put one foot in front of the other, quickly connecting with others, discovering needs and drawing on her skills and interests to serve her new community. “She didn’t have a roadmap,” I told the group. “It just evolved.”

“It’s scary not knowing what the road is,” said Sharon. “But if you’re kind of there and open to it, then other things come about that touch you and connect with you. You get into it.”

A slow walk or triathlon?

Pace is my particular challenge. ”You want to feel like retirement is the time when you have the time to do the things you really want to do, but then you don’t have the time to do them,” I said.

Quipped Carol K, reminiscing about her dream list. “I haven’t gotten to many of them. I thought I was going to be fluent in French.” Then, she noted that people are who they are. ”People who are over committed are constantly driven. It doesn’t matter if you’re employed or not.

Shellie loves the rushing. “I’m very happy being retired. Don’t ask me what I do, but I’m busy all the time. And I’m still rushing. Maybe it’s because I do too much, and that’s ok, too.”

On friending

The meeting ended in a kind of kumbaya – talking about the importance of  having each other, of having community at this stage of life.

For Shellie, that community is the Y, where she goes every day. “My volunteering is volunteering to be there for my friends and helping them through all the things they’re going through. Of course, they help me with the things I’m going through, too.”

Margit noted the loss of communities as we move on. “A lot of us have communities from our work and a lot of our friends are from our work, so whether or not we’re moving geographically, [when we leave work] we’re suddenly in another city. It’s called the City of Retired. And we have to figure it out.”

And for Barb, who works with many older people in her non-profit, the value of women’s friendship is “clearer and clearer” as she grows older.

“So many people come to the center where they create new groups. Much to their shock and surprise, they find they’re able to make meaningful relationships at any age.”

What are your concerns? What have you learned along your path that you can share with others.

(For previous posts on our Project Renewment meetings, google "Project Renewment" and "UnRetiring")

Grandparenting: Truly, A 'Next Great Thing'

Over the last two years, I've talked about the transition of dozens of people out of their careers to "the next great thing."  There are questions about identity, the hurt of being fired, being too busy (rarely not busy enough), getting out of sync with a still-full-time-working spouse, finding new adventures, and learning to say no to the many ideas and offers that bubble your way. And much much more.
What I've barely written about is the Greatest Next Thing that most of us wish for -- or cherish if we are lucky enough to already have it. The elephant in the room. Namely, grandkids. Perhaps almost subconsciously,  I've largely avoided touching on the grandparent role, though I now have four delicious grands, including one born just 8 months ago. Why has it been such a small part of this blog, yet such a big part of our lives?
I think because self-identifying as a grandparent is an admission of age. And also a window into the soft side of ourselves, the side that is not striving for an independent identity, continually on a path of discovery. Yet grandparenting, especially for those who step in on a regular basis, requires tremendous energy, as I discovered and did write about -- once -- in  Grandmalympics earlier this year.
For now, here is a wonderful essay by Sally Friedman, a writer who is tackling the deeper meaning of grandparenting and its own challenges. For instance, relating to children and young adults who are two generations behind you, especially when the buffer generation of their parents (your children) is not present.
Enjoy her insights and wisdom.
And let me know your thoughts on the challenges and self-discovery grandparenting brings and how to balance time with grandkids with time for yourself, to pursue other ventures.

A Pope's Gutsy Choice: Would You Do the Same?

Pope Benedict XVI: Time to say "Vale!"

The Pope has given us pause. When is it time to step out of a job? Why did he decide to toss his lifetime gig? Illness is cited as a reason. Also, and perhaps more importantly to him: the inability to meet his own high standards. Pope Benedict XVI is leaving before the world realizes it's time for him to quit, before he disappoints himself or is an embarrassment to the Church.

Even those still functioning at peak performance struggle with the decision to pack in a career. Also, the timing and manner of that departure are critical to how they feel about themselves afterwards, not to mention their transition to something else.  

Here are some previous posts on the question of when to leave a job and the emotions surrounding it:
On leaving at the top of your game: Elaine Woo
On leaving when you don't want to: Sofia Escobar
On the difficulty of taking a buyout: a blog about my own decision
And here's a study of contrasting decisions (or lack thereof) and their life-and-death consequences : Happy Fernandez and Ariel Sharon, in The Forward

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On Being a Daughter's Temporary Glue

Tiring, trying, a bit terrifying (read on) – also terrific.

That has been my week as the Grandma-on-Duty-with-two-year-old as daughter has her second child.

Speaking of UnRetiring, this may be the most challenging time I’ve had since leaving my job. (Maybe more so. At work, at least I could sit.) Call it Grandmalympics.

Among the tests of brain and brawn: figuring out how to wheel a large-ish stroller three blocks to Washington, D.C.’s red line (after remembering to bring Big Bird, the old Iphone with games on it, the hat and mango chips),  then two elevators, the metro, another elevator, another metro, two more elevators. Whew, 30 minutes later I’m wheeling him through the maze-like Ronald Reagan building, searching for the daycare center near daughter's office where she won't be for awhile. (I'd found it the day before -- where did it go today?) Finally find daycare and fish through my purse for the code to open the door and sign in the lad, (oops, I never signed him out the day before), and place him in the loving hands of his daycare moms.
Then return home via supermarket to buy newborn diapers, lunch, and the makings of dinners to stock their freezer. Oops, went to Giant instead of Whole Foods for those diapers – they need to be organic or recyclable or something. Good thing I kept the receipt. Back to the Giant to return it and to Whole Foods to buy the right thing!

Cooking, cooking, cooking.

Laundry, laundry, laundry.

Pick up at day care (half hour each way on metro); lad is not happy to see me. He approaches me, head down, like a prisoner returning to his cell. Good thing I brought a cookie.

New baby only home one day when medical problem emerges and we’re all racing to the ER. She lands in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. All of the above continues –now with visits to the hospital -- and then it’s Saturday. No daycare. It’s me, alone. Off to a toddler Shabbat service (he lasts through about half before remembering that it’s me -- not his daddy – who is with him). Then the communal lunch. I give him a bagel slathered with cream cheese and help myself to hummus, stuffed grape leaves, and other great looking stuff.

Oh no! Screaming, screaming.

Whazza matter?

Oh, he wants my plate. He sits there licking the cream cheese off the bagel, guarding the plate he’s commandeered. I sit there, hungry. Fortunately, some other grandparents take pity and get me food.

Back home, it's nap time. We both climb onto his bed where he reads me Goodnight Gorilla while I close my eyes. After 40 minutes he nods off…. And here I am. Waiting for mom and dad, with baby, to walk in the door and so grateful my daughter and son-in-law trust me to be their temporary glue.

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Insisting on the Final Word

Happy Fernandez, a joie de vivre

She had polio at age 10 and fought back to become a competitive tennis player. Seeing her on the court, even at age 73, was like watching a performance of balance and grace, her friends said. Then there was her mind – sharp, engaged.

And if anyone had a question about her stubborn determination, it was answered by her extraordinary living will.

When Happy Fernandez suffered a massive stroke recently, her family knew exactly what they had to do. She left no possibility that she might continue living if it were not in the fullest possible way. Plus, she didn’t want to be the recipient of extensive – and futile – medical care.

Have you written your living will? Would you make such a choice?    

With her family’s permission, here are excerpts from Happy’s living will, written several years before her death last month (the bold is all hers):                                                                                  

"I want this letter to supplement any living will to make clear how I feel.

Seeing … many older people … 'ware housed' and kept alive by drugs and food at great expense to the public via Medicare and other health care systems, I do NOT want to be kept alive by any machines, medicines or other means when I have lost mental and physical abilities to care for myself. If I am in a state where I no longer am able to ask for assistance to die with dignity, this letter should be taken as a directive and request.

I do not want health care services to be wasted or used to keep me alive when by accident, stroke or other mishaps I am not able to speak, feed myself, walk, see, hear and/or otherwise function as a human being. Please do not use any means to keep me alive – surgery, nutrition, drugs, etc. I am appalled at “wasting health care resources” to care for me if my mind and/or body are so wasted. I have lived more than a full life – every day is a gift after having polio at age 10 and the scare of post-polio syndrome in 1992. I have lived a full and useful life and feel ready to die if a stroke, heart attack, brain tumor or other terminal disease strikes me.

I want any public or private family or insurance dollars to be used to nurture the development of the next generation, here in the United States or in other democracies such as India, who are faced with huge problems of poverty and the mistreatment of women and children.

I would like to be allowed to starve to death or die quickly of pneumonia or an infection if I have some such disease or accident. Please take this as an honest and binding addendum to any living will that I have signed.

I realize that this is very difficult for my sons and my beloved Dick who I have loved so much since we met in 1959 at Sebago, but please respect my wishes and do not prolong my life, which has been filled with so many joys of loving you and your families.

A Happy Life Partner, Mom and Mama.”

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For Mad Men Fans, a Pitch that Changed America

The scene is dark. A man with thinning hair is lying awake, unable to sleep. He checks the time. It's 3:30 a.m.  The voiceover says:
So this is retirement. No place to go. Nothing to do. This is what it means to be put out to pasture. There must be something else.

And of course, in 1960 there was something else. Something new. An idea that Americans would glom onto for decades afterward.  The previous quote is from a video made  to promote the nation's first retirement community. That would be Sun City, AZ, a brainstorm of pioneering developer Del Webb, who is also credited with coming up with the phrase, "The Golden Years."

You've got to see this video to believe it. Mad Men fans, you'll love this!

If the play button on the photo below doesn't work, copy this in your browser:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxZH_WTRVNU

 or Google search:
"Youtube Sun City Promotional"

If you don't want to spend 12 minutes on it, start it at 7:40 for the winter of that generation's  discontent.

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To Be an 'Elder' -- Seeking Wisdom; Sharing Wisdom

Susan Rona, back in Montreal

Susan Rona, a Canadian educator, dedicated her career to proving that children, especially minority children, can succeed if their teachers believe that they can. It was a mission that absorbed her entirely.  And she was at the top of her game, having been invited to present her work to the European Parliament.

Then suddenly, it was gone.

“When I found myself retired, I didn’t make a decision to retire,” explained Susan, whose native tongue, Hungarian, aided her advocacy for Roma (gypsy) children in Eastern Europe. “This large international organization and I came to a point where it was time for us to part. So I went from my professional life being in 30 countries and feeling like my job in the world was to save the world -- especially  the lives of disadvantaged minorities and create a better world for them -- to doing nothing.”

The void she faced “terrified” her.

“I remember going to parties and people saying to me, ‘What do you do?’ and I had to run out the door or burst out crying because I just couldn’t answer that question. Over time, I developed an answer, which was, “I’m in transition.”

It was a response, really. Not an answer. 

Back home in Montreal, she kept searching.

“I spent a year seeing a life coach because I realized I didn’t need a therapist. I wasn’t depressed for no reason. I was situationally depressed because I didn’t know what to do with my life.”

At one point, the coach told Susan “that he saw me in my previous life as the captain of a ship who was constantly in rough waters and negotiating rough seas but that now I was a landlocked sailor who was looking out to sea and couldn't get out there -- and didn't necessarily want to get out there -- but didn't know what to do with myself.”

“That really spoke to me.”

So Susan asked herself, as a “landlocked sailor who didn’t want to manage any more boats and didn’t want to manage any more people and didn’t want to navigate rough seas, what is it that I did want to do?”

The answer came to her on an assignment for the Canadian government in the Yukon. At a meeting of First Nations people, “I was observing this woman who was an elder in the community and she wasn’t educated. But she was incredibly wise, and all the young people were looking to her for her insight and her wisdom.

“It was at that moment that I discovered that really what I wanted to be was an elder.

She no longer wanted to manage those “rough seas” anymore, “but I did want to support other people to do it well. And I wanted to be an elder in life, helping people find their paths through some of the wisdom I had developed over time.”

For that reason, Susan went on to train to become a professional, certified life coach. (susanrona.coaching@gmail.com)

Susan had another wise role model. Her father. And it’s timely that I publish this story now, on the anniversary of his death, two years ago.

“Maybe watching and experiencing my wonderful father age with the grace that he had and seeing how he could lose his ability to walk, he could lose his ability to move, he could lose his independence and yet still remain such a powerful soul, who gave so much to everybody. The fact that I spent the last five years of my life before he died having him as the center, the core of my existence, I learned a lot. So I aspire to be a wise elder.”

No longer, says Susan, does she need to be famous or successful or make money.

“I don’t need any of that. All I want is to live in a way that I will have no regrets, giving to those whom I love and to those who I don’t necessarily love but can help. So I can support them through some of what I’ve learned.”