The "retirement" trap

I’ve talked to lots of retired folks who have this experience: Someone asks what you’ve been up to, and you find yourself at a loss for words. It’s hard to name the things you do, they come and go with such smooth frequency and without any particular temporal structure, so it’s hard to find them when you’re asked. So you mutter something about “keeping busy” (which is often enough to shift the conversation to another topic) and wonder to yourself what you have been doing. The one thing you know for sure is that you’ve been “keeping busy.” Every day is full, and you’re plenty tired. But unless something really dramatic has happened, the days do flow smoothly, and barring exciting adventures, it’s hard to say what precisely they’ve held.

So, I just had this experience myself, only the person inquiring was me. I realized that it’s been weeks since I posted a new blog, but I can’t really say why. “Busy, I guess,” I said to myself. “And just what has kept me so busy?” (I didn’t let me off the hook like most folks do).  Unable to answer, I actually checked my calendar (now that’s pitiful!). And I found a collection of assorted events – attending a play at The Dairy, taping a radio show, hosting another show live, meetings about other up-coming shows, a farewell party for a colleague, an afternoon piano recital (‘The Soiree,’ officially), the Manhattan Middle School annual Diversity Day assembly (featuring Resonance Women’s Chorus, a.k.a. “my chorus”), an author talk about homophobia in women’s sports and her experience at CU,  a performance by “Somethin’ About Lulu,” a meeting of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change, bits of website work for Boulder Valley Safe Schools Coalition, and some projects related to my new role as Organizing Maven for Resonance (I’ve been upgraded from “assistant maven”!). Plus the usual life-maintenance stuff: grocery shopping, laundry, errands, trash and recycling, paying bills …

So, I said to myself, that’s a lot of small things (OK, Resonance isn’t “small,” but it’s not huge). But it doesn’t explain why I manage to barely slip in a walk most days or why the magazines pile up unread for weeks on end. And then I thought about the part of my life that I often forget to mention when folks ask what I’ve been up to. My job. I spend about 4 hours a day, every day—equivalent to a half-time job or more—on my at-home, freelance editing job. It’s often fascinating, occasionally boring work that I actually enjoy a lot. And, more to the point here, it fills huge chunks of every day, leaving me far less time for leisure (or for adventurous undertakings) than a “retired” person might be expected to have. I guess my identity as “retired” is so primary in how folks see me—and, apparently, how I see myself—that this little item goes unremarked.

This interview with myself got me thinking about how we understand “retirement” in general. Sociologists talk about the concept of a “master status”—i.e., a particular status or identity that seems so compelling that everything else becomes secondary. Knowing someone’s “master status” makes us think we know a lot about them: she’s a woman, so she’s sensitive and nurturing; he’s a teenager, so he’s rebellious. It seems like work status is a master status. We place so much emphasis on productivity and achievement that our “work”—i.e., specific, gainful, often full-time employment—becomes our identity. So it’s not surprising that when someone leaves work, we assume that they have nothing to do. Except maybe spend all their time looking for work, if they’re “out of work” instead of “retired from work.” When people want or need a job, time away from work often seems like lost time or wasted time. But when we retire … what is it then? Empty time? Meaningless, aimless time?

In truth, many of the retired folks I know have an identity based on anything but empty time. Their sense of themselves is grounded in what they now do, not by what they no longer do. It’s a name for this sort of identity that I’m fishing for when I can’t find an answer to “what have you been up to?” I have no overriding, umbrella identity—which I definitely did have when I was working full time. Back then, I could easily tell you want I do (i.e., my work). Now, without that work identity, neither I nor other folks have a concept for what I do, other than that I’m retired. Which means unlimited time to do nothing in particular.  To fill my days with pastimes, just passing time.

So then I ask myself, why do I pretty routinely forget about the role that actually explains what I do with a lot of my time? Why do I forget to mention it to others, forget to remember it myself? Maybe it’s that this particular activity is hard to fit into the same conversation with “retired,” since it is a job of sorts. But I think it’s more than that. Other folks have equally time-consuming, equally compelling activities. Activities that are as important to them as their jobs were. Do I miss noticing, being curious about those too?  “Retired.” No occupational identity. So, what do you do with all your time?

Seems like we need to listen more carefully to ourselves and to one another. It might help if we remember that when folks say they’re retired, it doesn’t actually mean they have no engrossing, self-defining activities, no substantive meaning in their lives. It’s just that it’s not about work—at least not in the standard sense.

And those of us who are retired probably need to remember that about ourselves, too, lest we fall into the trap of thinking that “retired” means that everything we do counts as a “pastime.”

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2014. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post.

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Editing the sandbox

I mentioned not long ago that I have signed on as a part of a group that will be responsible for KGNU's LGBTQ program, "Outsources." Well, last Friday, I got a sort of baptism by fire into this new gig.

The previous Monday, our group, which we have dubbed the "Outsources Collective," presented our first program. In this program, one member of our group interviewed author Molly Haskell about her book "My Brother, My Sister: Story of a Transformation." As you might gather from the title, Haskell's former sibling recently transitioned—at the age of 59—from a male to a female gender identity. A few of us in the Collective thought that some of Haskell's comments would evoke a degree of resistance from other members of the LGBTQIA community.

This seemed like a perfect opportunity to bring to life one of the goals we hold for this program: to invite a variety of perspectives on complicated issues that affect the LGBTQ and ally community. We agreed that it would be good to do a program that would offer a different point of view on trans issues and, especially, on family members' responses to variations in gender identity. So we decided to do an interview with a local mom of a trans child. This would give us another perspective from a family member—this time a mom instead of a sister, and this time, a family member with years of learning about trans issues and years of involvement in trans communities.

And I got tapped (largely because I had the time ... ah, the risky benefits of retirement!) to do the interview. My conversation with the mom was energized and informative. She is so comfortable, so solid, so clear about her child's place in the world—the result of an open, loving heart and a life spent beside a child who transitioned early in elementary school and is now almost finished with high school. Along the way, this mom has spent much of her adult life working to convey her principled clarity and solidity to others.

As you might imagine, her experience and that of her daughter have been quite different from the experiences described by Molly Haskell the previous week. To get a feel for both, you can listen to the interview—which also includes excerpts from Molly Haskell's comments—by clicking right here and then playing the 10/21 show.

This mom has thought so much about these issues, has so many personal stories about the difficult path she and her daughter have traversed. Not to mention the challenges that lie ahead. Many of their experiences have been oppressive and arduous, as is clear from our discussion. Some encounters and some recurrent obstacles (bathrooms, legal records, medical personnel) have been extraordinarily—and unnecessarily—painful. Nonetheless, her comments convey strength and resolve instead of despair, and she seems satisfied about the trajectory of her life. 

And then our KGNU mentor notified me that the next step—editing the recording and turning it into a show—was up to me. He had given me a lesson in editing earlier, so this wasn't out of the blue. But I can't say that I felt ready to take in on alone. Still, KGNU is largely run by volunteers, and I'm one of them. So, as if I were an actual "producer," I spent 5 hours in front of the computer screen transforming a 36 minute interview into a 29 minute show. Basically, deleting 20% of the interview. I couldn't believe what time it was when I finished. Five hours! And I'd have been there much longer if I hadn't had an evening commitment. Still, I was as finished as time allowed, and we had a show. That I produced ... mostly.

What a great (if fiery) experience it was! I mean the interview, of course, but also the editing. I actually love fiddling with things techie. And I was delighted (if a bit daunted) to be set loose on a learning-by-doing project to convert the interview with this remarkable woman into a fragment of its former self while still maintaining the integrity of her comments. And in the process, resisting the temptation of what our mentor called "vanity editing," i.e., editing out all my own "uhs" and "ums."

When I was done and told our mentor how long it took, he assured me, chuckling, that 5 hours was actually not a record. He also said that in the first few efforts at editing, it's typical to spend about 20% of your time producing the show and 80% learning to edit. He meant these comments to be reassuring. Still, framed another way, this would suggest that of the 5 hours I spent, only about an hour was "productive." Actually, though, after many years teaching, I know better: time spent learning is productive time. In fact, those exciting moments of getting it, of mastering something—or even moving in that direction—are exactly what gave me such pleasure during this slow process. It's also what kept me returning to school in the fall every year for 50 years. (What a nice thought:  I've had a happy lifetime of 20% to 80% days.)

I've gotta say, this was like a day in the sandbox for me, a chocolate ice cream cone melting down my arm.

And now, the Outsources Collective moves on to the next show. It turns out that, in addition to being a lot of fun, this is a lot of work! No time to kick back and enjoy the sandbox. There's another show to be produced for next week. And then the next. With several of us working on it, at least that doesn't mean that any one of us has to do a full production every week. But we are all in it ... and it's always waiting to be tended to again. For now, it looks like I'll get to do a big part of another show in a couple of weeks. Including hours of editing.

I can hardly wait.

Nope. Definitely not bored yet.

Retired? Aren't you bored? What do you do with your time?

"I lie on the couch, watching soap operas and eating bonbons," I say when someone asks.

Given my incredible freedom to do what I want (and not do what I don't), my life could be very leisurely—even boring. But the truth is that I usually feel really, truly, insanely busy. And that's the case for lots of the retired folks I know. Most of us wonder how we ever had time to work.

Where does this busyness come from? For me, it's simple: opportunities come along that are just too interesting to pass up. One-time adventures and long-term commitments. Some of these float unexpectedly within reach, and if I'm lucky, I get to catch them in flight. Some, I chase after. Some arrive in familiar form, some in unexpected form. The especially interesting part is that most of the things I end up doing are a surprise to me. The retirement I expected is not at all the retirement I have.

I've been thinking about this recently as I've watched my life morph from one set of activities to another. A couple of my most recent involvements were totally (totally!) unexpected, unimagined just weeks ago. In both of these, I'm aware of a pull that many people report as they age: the desire to be engaged with a community. I mentioned this in passing in a previous blog, and it was these opportunities I was hinting at.

My first new gig is as a member of a sort of a "production collective" who will work together to plan and produce a show about LGBTQ topics on KGNU, the local community radio station. The show, called "Out Sources," has been ongoing for some time. But the long-time producer moved on, and a group of us have agreed to step in to his role. I had never, in my wildest dreams, imagined producing a radio show—and am I ever glad it's a "collective" process! It'll be fun, for sure. We'll get to decide on content and format for the show—neither of which any of us has done before—and eventually produce and present the show ourselves. The KGNU staff are extremely helpful in this process. Yesterday, I had a private tutoring session in how to run "the board" and edit content for the show. That'll take a lot of practice, but I'm eager to get into it. My only worry is (totally predictably) time. 

The other new gig also promises to be rewarding in so many ways. I've written several times about Resonance Women's Chorus of Boulder—mostly praising their music and their social consciousness. But in addition to their public presence, I have appreciated them as a friendship group, as a community. I've come to know several of these women over the years, initially through my partner's singing in Resonance. And I've had an opportunity to see how much they show up for one another. The ways they do this are countless: attending one another's art or music shows, contributing to causes championed by others in the chorus, singing at ceremonies (weddings, commitment ceremonies, funerals, memorial services), showing up over and over to help ill or dying members and their families and friends, gathering informally to sing when singing is what they need ... the list, as I said, is endless.

When I began to consider recently how isolated I have been from any real sense of a larger, broader community, Resonance looked more and more appealing—but unavailable to me, since I've never been a singer. But then Sue Coffee, the director of Resonance (and of Sound Circle, which I've also mentioned before), invited me to work with the chorus in a support capacity. The chance to join Resonance—in this or any capacity—was a gift. 

It is true that the radio show will provide me with an opportunity to be connected in a new way with the queer community in the Denver–Boulder area, and that's a very good thing. But what speaks most to my need for a sense of belonging in a community, what best addresses what I wish for as I age is the community of women in Resonance. 

But these two mega life events—both of which will entail long-term community engagement never imagined by the contentedly reclusive self I was just months ago—aren't the only things keeping boredom at bay. There are also the many one-off events that pass through all our lives, retired or not. In recent weeks, my schedule of such events has included a movie at the Women's Film Festival in Denver about American nuns and their activism, a play at the Boulder Fringe Festival about being closeted (and not), a film at CU's International Film Festival  about Hannah Arendt, and a "Science on the Screen" talk and film event at the Dairy Center (a benefit for flood relief).

Just to be sure I don't get bored now that those are past, my calendar shows a similar line up in coming weeks (I'll provide links in case anyone want to go): "Just Like Us," a play about a group of Latina friends (in Denver) dealing with the impacts of their differing immigration status; "The Book of Mormon," which most of you know is a musical comedy about two Mormon missionaries in Uganda (by the Colorado-based creators of "South Park"); a much more non-mainstream play, "G.I.M.P. Nation," a guaranteed consciousness-raising "differently-abled sketch comedy" that includes segments titled "Sex and the Pity," Suicide Hotline," and "Your Own Private Hell." Add to those the ever-changing set of musical events. Coming up soon are a concert by singer-songwriter and lefty activist Holly Near and two by a favorite local group, Somethin' about Lulu—you get the (boredom-free) picture. 

There's always more to do than can be done. Next week, I have to choose between an interesting talk at the Boulder History Museum or a poetry/roundtable event exploring the context of Trayvon Martin's murder. My partner reminds me that these are "existential dilemmas" that we all face. Retired or not. And that's just counting the fun stuff.

Really, how could I be bored.

Meanwhile, in the quiet recesses of my crazed mind, I've been paying increasing attention to the issue of wildfires—our role in creating them, in making them progressively worse, in increasing the risk to ourselves and to others, in creating an unsustainable and indefensible (literally) situation for those who are charged to deal with these things. I've found I don't have time to do the work I want to do on that topic, so I'm going to take occasional days off from my editing work (OK, so I'm not really totally retired) to do more. So be prepared for a series of blogs ... and maybe more than that. We'll see. After all, I'm retired. I get to choose what I do and how much of it I do.

If I wanted to, I guess I could even get bored. Soap operas and bonbons, anyone?    

Stay tuned ...

Retirement ... encore (Part 2)

A few days ago, I posted a blog about an emerging view of aging that suggests a new “encore” stage between midlife and old age. The idea is that instead of retiring (in the old sense of taking it easy), a lot of folks are filling their post-midlife years with very active engagement with the world—sometimes including starting new careers. There’s a lot to be said for this new look at aging, and that was the subject of that earlier blog. But I promised to come back with some concerns I have about this model. This, you will no doubt be happy to know, is that promised commentary.

So here are my two concerns:

First, I always worry about any model that talks about “stages” of development. Stages always imply a sort of lock-step approach, where you have to take one step before you can start the next. They’re always accompanied by a nodding acknowledgement that “this doesn’t fit everyone.” But for the most part, the discussion of stages then goes on to assume that the model does, in fact, apply to everyone … except maybe folks who are somehow failing at their developmental task.

So, I’m troubled by the sort of “should” nature of this portrayal of aging as happening in stages. What does this perspective say, for instance, of someone who doesn’t want to add on a stage or start a new career? What about people who are perfectly content building their later life around recreation, hobbies, family, personal pursuits? Are those folks somehow failing to “fulfill their full potential”? Are they abandoning the promise of their generation by making these choices? And then what of the person who doesn’t get an “encore”? The person who, for whatever reason, chooses to (or must) continue in the “old” job/career until they retire once and for all? And what about someone who thought they had a chance for an “encore” until the bottom fell out of the economy? How do we understand their choices within this model?

I think the idea of staying engaged in the world—through a career or other means—is grand … for those folks for whom it fits. But I resist any implication that there’s a “right” way to grow, whether it’s growing up or growing old.

My second concern is that this model makes huge assumptions about the choices that are available to people. Now, this model applies to a lot of retired folks I know. Some have started new careers, lots are very engaged in community activities. But my circle of friends is a fairly homogeneous group. Like the “encore” folks discussed in these writings, most of us have a wealth of privilege—financial privilege, white privilege, educational privilege, geographic privilege—that allows us to live as we do. The fact that we can even entertain an “encore” option points to our privilege. 

The question for poor folks is not whether to frame retirement as a recreational escape or as an opportunity for an “encore” career. The question is whether they can stop working at all. For people without economic resources, the end of working life comes not by comfortable retirement of any sort, but by default, by necessity, due to poor health, economic downturns, outsourcing. (Coincidentally, as I was thinking about this, I also came across a recent study showing that both forced “retirement” and ill health have significant negative effects on post-retirement well-being. What a surprise!)

I have similar thoughts about educational privilege. It’s far easier to consider entering a new career when you have a broad education that allows for flexibility than when you have a limited set of skills that fit a limited range of occupations. It’s easy to say “go back to school” when it’s back to school instead of just to school because you never got much schooling as a child.

To see what I mean, check out the list of possible “encore” careers given in the article I talked about before. The vast majority of them require significant educational background: nurse, nurse instructor, social worker, teacher, child-care worker, yoga instructor, non-profit social media manager, grant writer, pastoral counselor, etc. These may be encore careers for someone with considerable prior education. But they are almost certainly out of reach for someone who previously worked as a clerk, a welder, a nurse’s aide, a bus driver, a domestic worker. Other options listed not only presume that the retiree is well established but that a lot of other (privileged) folks are interested in the retiree’s particular “passion”—yoga instructor, for instance. The few positions listed here that might be within reach of folks who are poorer, less able, and less educated would hardly be considered “encore careers” that promise passion and purpose accompanied by a far-less-important paycheck. They’re more like continuing hard work for low pay: home health aide, solar installation trainer, weatherization installer.

So, this whole idea of an encore career offers us an opportunity to reconsider our privilege. Now, privilege isn’t inherently a bad thing. As Suzanne Pharr has said, you just need to spend your privilege well. This provides  the ideal lens through which we might envision that encore career—as a way to spend our privilege well. From my own particular personal peculiar perspective, that would not include yoga instructor, but it would definitely include teacher’s aide, Peace Corps volunteer, AmeriCorps volunteer, home-health aide. These are jobs, not careers, and they don’t pay well. But for those of us who have the resources to make a choice based not on monetary need but on the desire for passion and purpose, jobs like these would mean privilege well spent. There are other options, too, careers that spend privilege well but that require more education than many retired people can (or will choose to) undertake—social worker, teacher, non-profit grant writer, and others. Or, we have the privilege to simply retire, to rest. To stop and smell the roses. But let’s not imagine that this privilege is available to everyone simply because a new life stage has been designated.

This whole line of thought seems like such a wet blanket. It’s far more fun to tout the joys of aging and the choices we have (as I have done before here). So this blog seems out of character for me. But I want to honor the lives of people who don’t come to aging with anything like the privilege I enjoy. The vision of an encore performance is grand. For those who can do it, it’s a fine testament to the amazing ability of humans to, as old Timex watch ads used to say, “take a licking and keep on ticking.” But whether we have this option depends so much on the the privilege we arrive with. 

Really. 

Retirement ... encore!

During the past week, a friend gave me two readings, both proposing that the process of aging—in fact, the process of adult development in general—is undergoing major change. The time has come, they argue, to declare a new developmental stage for the years after midlife and before old age, after the primary career and before full retirement. Lots of folks promoting this vision are calling it the “encore” stage. 

I had really complicated reactions to this stuff. I both loved it and found it deeply problematic. So, following my partner’s sage advice, I’m going to talk about it in two steps: (1) the idea of an encore stage after midlife and before old age and (2) some of the problems this idea raises (at least in my mind). This time, I’ll talk about the idea. Stay tuned for (or tune out, your choice) the second installment.

OK, so it’s not a stretch to say that adulthood has changed, has gotten more complicated. Chalk it up to the baby boomers, who are now moving in huge numbers beyond “midlife” but still not embracing “old age.” Or blame it on the miracles of modern medicine that are keeping us alive and active far beyond the age at which our forebears died. Or attribute it to the growing number of people who are retiring earlier and facing decades of healthy life ahead. Or, more recently, to the number of folks who couldn’t retire (or who “unretired”) because of the recession. Or all of those and more …

Whatever the reason, many people now face a lot of years after the end of midlife, after their initial career or job trajectory winds down. Years when they are eager to do something more (and, often, something more useful) than just engaging in leisure activities, traveling, playing with grandkids—the old stalwart pastimes of retirement. Increasingly, folks are still interested in being engaged in some sort of productive activity and, often, in making a real contribution to their communities.

These particular writings talk about these trends in terms of this notion of the encore career. The first item is a book called The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage beyond Midlife (Marc Freedman, Public Affairs Press, 2011). The book explains (in some detail) this major shift in how people are aging. Not only are we living longer, healthier lives, but many people are genuinely interested in working (in some capacity) far beyond their usual working life. To fully embrace this shift, the book argues, we need to throw out the old developmental models, where midlife is followed directly by old age (remember Erik Erikson’s “Eight Stages of Man [sic]”?). In their place, we need to re-write our collective life story, adding in this “encore” stage. Among my favorite proposals is that this encore might often be preceded by a “gap year,” a year off to get your bearings, try things out, consider how to spend the next stage—just as some young adults now take a year off between college and whatever follows. Beyond that delightful proposal, the book suggests a whole range of programmatic changes—on the personal, community, and governmental levels—that would facilitate the invention of this new stage.

The same perspective is raised, in a much briefer form, in the second reading, an AP article reprinted in the Denver Post called “For boomers, time for an encore.” This article makes much the same point (in fact, I checked to see if this article was a promotion for the book; it wasn’t). The article highlights a group (and website) called Encore.org, whose aim is to connect people with new careers that combine “purpose, passion, and a paycheck.” It also lists a bunch of ideas for specific career paths that “encore” stagers might pursue.

This whole idea appeals to me in a couple of ways. First, it’s always seemed odd to me how slowly models of human development change. They’re about change, for Pete’s sake! Yet we’re still citing Erik Erikson (1955) as we talk about development in 2012. And of all the stages that have changed, later adulthood may be the most fluid of all, if only because it has become so flipping long! Not only do we live longer, but retirement comes increasingly earlier—especially since, during this last generation, Medicare was introduced (1965) and Social Security benefits were increased (1972). So of course later adulthood has changed. And I find it invigorating to contemplate re-writing the rules for what “normal” or even “typical” adult development looks like in this new age.

I also like this stuff because it fits so well with my perennial emphasis on things wonderful about aging (see former blogs on “Celebrating Oldness” and “Bucket Lists and Donuts,” among others). This “encore” vision portrays retirement not as the end of our productive years but as a sort of re-set before entering a new and equally expansive stage of life. As anyone who’s listened to me rant about this knows, I worry that we're too quick to dwell on the losses of aging and too reluctant to embrace its gifts. Clearly, this new model offers inspiration—and even some direction—for folks who are searching for a meaningful and productive way to spend their post-midlife years. So the encore stage appeals to me big time in this way.

Also, and less comfortably, this feels like a personal challenge to me. Reading these pieces, I have to ask myself whether I’m taking full advantage of my encore time, or whether I’m treating it like an old-time retirement-on-the-front-porch stage, “old age” in those outdated developmental models. Am I slacking when I should be beating the bushes for a fulfilling new career? Am I resigning myself to the pasture when I still should be on the race track?

Or, alternatively, is this encore model just another source of pressure to “do it right”?

So suggests one psychologist, who’s concerned that this new view of aging that urges a new career with passion and purpose might just add another burden for post-retirement folks: stay active, stay engaged, stay healthy, stay connected to social networks. Oh yeah, and in your spare time, stay working. But stay out of the way of younger workers. This pressure, she argues, “denies the reality of aging.” She continues, “If there’s one thing great about getting older, [it’s that] certain things are liberating ... Do we really want to put more societal pressure on people as they grow older to look and act ever younger?”

To draw on that earlier “Bucket Lists and Donuts” blog, do we have to have a bucket list and an encore career to be “healthy” as we age? Or can we enjoy the occasional donut and call it good? I wish I had the answer. Instead, I just keep reading (and blogging), hoping to outlast the question.

Truth is, it sometimes seems like getting older is flat-out hard work, and the constant need to rethink how we’re doing it can be exhausting. So, let me shift to a different (but, I fear, no less heavy) topic. Next time I’ll talk about what I think is a major shortcoming of this new encore model. Other than that it requires serious reflection.

Just when we were having a good time …

Last Act in the Footlights

This week, I encountered two very (very!) different blogs about retirement and aging. First, a friend sent me an “Opinionator” blog from the New York Times with the inspiring title, “For Healthy Aging, a Late Act in the Footlights.” Later in the week, I heard a Fresh Air segment on NPR in which Terri Gross was interviewing the author of a blog called “The Voice of Aging Boomers.” A starker contrast is hard to imagine.

First, the “Late Act in the Footlights.” This blog points to the challenge that many of us faced as we approached retirement without the resources to support the exotic adventures we imagined as we dreamed of retirement. As the column frames it, “Absent money and a sense of possibilities, retirement can become more time to fill with television.” This is the theme of countless columns and blogs and articles on retirement: how to make your retirement (and/or aging in general) a rich and satisfying experience. That’s harder when you come to it with limited financial resources. But, as this article and many others (including this blog) have argued, it really is possible to find great joy in aging. 

This particular piece offers a range of novel ideas to fill the void of all that extra time that retirement dumps in our laps. Artists' colony, senior Olympics, collective film production, or community theater anyone? Most of the ideas mentioned here are the brainchildren of a program called EngAGE, which is located in LA. But there's no reason these ideas couldn't be exported to any place where someone has the time and energy to clone them (and maybe some capital to support the effort, I suppose). Check them out ... maybe you're the person to bring them to your town!

So far, so good … aging can indeed be full and rich and expansive (even in LA)!

And then I heard the Fresh Air interview, and another door on aging opened. “The Voice of Aging Boomers” is written by a man who has early-onset Alzheimer’s. His condition put him in an assisted living facility at the age of 52—far younger than most of the residents there, and younger than most of us at retirement. But retired he was, and living in assisted living with fully intact cognitive ability, no peers of his own age (or even his own generation), and many years ahead. Since he’s there, he has decided to use his aging years well. He has taken on a role as the “voice” of people living in what he describes as a setting filled with disability, dementia, despair, and death. Many people living in this circumstance are unable to speak—or speak clearly—for themselves, he argues. Many others are dismissed as simply old people who are somewhat demented or depressed or just lonely. But in fact, they are desperately in need of more genuine caring, honest attention, and thoughtful understanding and less patronizing, idealizing, de-individualizing, and dismissive treatment. So he has become the “voice of ambient despair.”

This is the other side of aging. For many of us, some part of our last years will be spent beyond the reach of artists colonies and community theater. Beyond, even, Sudoku and crosswords. The stark reality is that no matter how many almonds and blueberries we eat, no matter how many miles we walk or how many weights we lift, no matter how little we weigh, smoke, or drink and how much we exercise, sleep, or pray, we will all die. Relatively few of us will slip painlessly and quietly away in our sleep. Most won’t, as the currently popular slogan urges, “… skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, champagne in the other … screaming, ‘WOO HOO what a ride!’” Many of us will spend the last weeks, months, or even years of our lives not in theater or painting classes but in extended ill health. I know it’s a downer, but there it is.

So, I ask myself, how do we balance these two realities: Aging can be rich and expansive … and … Aging inevitably ends. Or, perhaps more accurately, how do we balance our reaction to these two realities? How do we both fully live now and fully accept that we will die? How can one mind and heart possibly contain both our wish to relish the time we have and the knowledge that one day—one finite day, a day with a date and weather, a day that’s someone’s birthday, someone’s wedding day—it will all simply stop?

Better minds than mine have contemplated this question since humans had minds for contemplating. In fact, some folks argue that this is what distinguishes humans from all other species: we have the ability to know we will die. For better (we can “get our affairs in order”) and for worse (we have to live with this realization, however we may try to ignore or deny it). Some folks have argued that this is one purpose served by a belief in an afterlife: we don’t have to accept that our life will stop if we are certain that it continues beyond the grave.

Whatever your position on these arguments, my personal experience is this: I am occasionally stunned by the reality that the years ahead keep getting fewer (and they're passing faster!), and I'm eager to live as fully as I can manage today. Ask me about this again if/when I find myself in assisted living, staring at a world that seems full of disability, dementia, despair, and death. I may find that eagerness less compelling. 

Until then, pass the chocolate and the (alcohol-free) champagne!

Epcot, APA, and the unending search for identity

Some time ago, I read about a study where they gave subjects glasses to wear that turned everything upside down. Looking through these lenses, subjects would step up to enter a room, because the panel above the door seemed to be at their feet. They would raise their right hand to reach something that was on their left. At first, folks felt really disoriented. But eventually, it became “normal,” and they were able to master this new view with ease. I think about that study when I find myself making a conscious effort to see things differently. Especially, to shift from a critical perspective (my standard lens) to a more open and positive one (the inverted version). Over the past several days, I had a flock of opportunities to try inverting some lenses. 

I just got back from a trip to Florida. Yup, Florida in August. Temp in the 90s and humidity to match. We went primarily to attend the annual convention of the American Psychological Association (APA), so we had no control over the date. While we were in Orlando, we also visited Epcot, which I had heard described as sort of a science theme park. With lens inversions everywhere I turned, I came away kind of dizzy. 

Epcot Entrance

We started at Epcot, where I had anticipated scientific wonders and fascinating, little-known facts about the earth, space, and the future of both. Instead, we found your basic carnival rides disguised as educational “experiences,” with over-priced souvenirs hawked at every opportunity and mediocre food purveyed in crowded spaces reminiscent of my middle school lunchroom. At least that was my critical, adultomorphic response … perhaps heightened by the visible avarice of small children and the stress levels of their parents. I couldn’t help but wonder, what will these children do with all those mouse ears? And how will their parents pay for this extravagant visit to the county fair on steroids?

But when I managed to apply my curiosity and my education in developmental psychology instead of my skepticism, I saw something quite different. Imagine the challenge of creating experiences that engage the interest of children, tweens, and teens while at the same time teaching them something. Framed in this way, some of the “experiences” were really clever: tests of reaction time and dexterity, opportunities to design a “perfect society” based on personal values, a quick trip through the history of communication (which actually recognized the role of Islamic thinkers in preserving the knowledge lost in the Dark Ages), a ride that simulated the g-forces encountered during blast-off and a slingshot acceleration courtesy of the moon. There weren’t a lot of these, and some lines stretched to almost an hour. But still, the day at Epcot wasn’t, in my mind, a total bust. Besides, the scorching heat and drenching humidity meant that the crowds were relatively light. Can’t complain about that.

Florida has nice skies, too!

Then came APA. I have been ambivalent about this organization and its conference since long before my retirement. It feels sort of stuffy and pretentious to me, with many folks preoccupied with their status and with finding many ways to flaunt it. Also, many of the presentations remind me of the old question about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Scientific psychology is surprisingly able to slice and dice the most intriguing experiences into tiny crumbs that feel meaningless and even absurd in themselves. The idea, of course, is that in combination, they will create meaningful knowledge. But lots of sessions at this conference seem to me to be light years away from any such synthesis. All of this triggers my critical tendencies big time.

On the other hand, I regularly see friends at APA that I don’t see any other time. These are people I really care about, many of whom are doing truly important, socially relevant work. And the simple coming together of thousands of people also often brings surprising interactions. We encountered an old friend from our time in New Hampshire and had a wonderful, extended lunch conversation with her and her friend. We went to dinner with a heterosexual couple whom I had never met before, whose work as allies to the LGBTQ community is informed by broad-based and deeply held social justice values. The conversation was wide ranging and deep, and it left me feeling both heard and educated. A perfect inversion of the invisibility I often feel in the larger organization.

We also went to some really thoughtful and thought-provoking sessions, especially on the role of psychology in informing and shaping public policy. Some sessions were focused on efforts to protect the rights of LGBT folks, and some highlighted other social justice concerns—racial and class equality, prisoners’ rights, support for families facing financial crises, and others. The complexity and sophistication of these public policy efforts are just so impressive. In these sessions, I was reminded how important psychology’s role can be in the world. Seen from this perspective, APA didn’t seem like a waste after all.

Ducks in the hotel lobby fountain. Really!

Then, as if Epcot and APA hadn’t torqued my perspective enough, I ran smack into an old bugaboo: the question of who I am, really, in this setting. The preface: before I retired, I used to regularly present papers at APA. For a time, my work was known and well respected in these circles of folks whom I admire. When conversations popped up, I was an active participant, and I was heard and respected by people I listen to and respect. Now, my place is so much less clear. No one is rude to me. In fact, these folks are very gracious. But I am really aware that I am not, now, “part” of it all. I am on the outside, watching and listening in. My partner, on the other hand, is really churning in her career. Lots of the work she did years ago is increasingly being noticed and honored. She is at the very center of what’s happening in our circle of “homies” at APA.

I know that I chose this position. And I know that I keep on choosing it by not focusing my time and energy on staying in touch with the developments in my field, by not presenting papers at this and other conferences. And usually, I’m quite fine with that. But something hit me this time. My partner was out doing a gig one evening, and I got bored and lonely. I was at loose ends, unable to decide what to do with my time. And sitting in the hotel room, I really saw clearly how different our professional lives are now. How I actually don’t have a professional life, while she has a very vibrant one. Maybe more to the point, I realized that I am at a bit of a loss about how to navigate that difference in a way that joins integrity in my own life and enthusiasm for hers.

So my task now reminds me of that old inverted lens study. I need to find that alternative lens, the one that will guide me to a position of ease and comfort in settings where I used to be, but now am not, in the professional ingroup. One that swaps confusion and discomfort for joy and fulfillment. It’s not unlike the change in perspective around Epcot or around the merits of APA. But I’m guessing this shift will be more difficult—and probably more important.

In truth, this is an old and familiar task, already navigated many times: toddlerhood, adolescence, midlife, and right at retirement. It involves crafting yet another answer to the recurring question: Who will I be now, in this setting?

Today, I’m back home, settling into the pattern of my days. Here, I don’t find myself at loose ends when my partner is busy. I have lots to do, many things I find gratifying (like this blog). But this other issue still itches at the back of my mind. APA and its clones will reappear, and I’d rather not be caught off balance again. So I guess I have to put some thought into this now, while the dust is settled.

Maybe I should buy a bright red sports car or get a tattoo and some piercings instead. It would be easier.

The circle game

And the seasons they go 'round and 'round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We're captive on the carousel of time

We can't return we can only look behind

From whence we came

And go 'round and 'round and 'round

In the circle game

- Joni Mitchell, “Circle Game”

In the past week or so, I wrote two blogs that now have follow-up stories. The original topics seemed to be on opposite ends of some continuum: one was about death and the other was about summer vacation. But there you have it, the two sides of retirement: the reality that it ends and the joy of being here in the meantime. 

So here goes: the circle game.

In the recent blog about death and dying, I talked about the odd ways we manage death—especially, managing to act like it isn’t really a part of life. Just a few days later, I went to a memorial service for a wonderful woman who seemed to so enjoy her life, and in the process, brought great joy to other folks. At the service, a couple of people mentioned how they had appreciated that blog entry. Only then did it strike me: Hmmm, I thought to myself, I knew this service was coming up before I wrote the blog. Maybe writing about death at this particular moment wasn’t just a coincidence. Of course, when I wrote it, I attributed my focus on death to Joe Klein’s Time magazine article. But I have to wonder if I was also thinking about death precisely because it was so close to my life at that moment—as close as a casual friend with whom I’d shared many potlucks, whom I often saw at the neighborhood movie theater before the cheap matinee so beloved by us retired folks, whom I’d seen at many LGBTQ events, always interested, always curious, always enthusiastic and earnest.

Seeing the connection was a reminder of how the reality of death floats around us all the time, how we keep it at bay, and how we find ways to process it when it insists on staring us in the face. We wrap the fearful future in the things we do every day to give meaning to our lives.

And in another domain entirely ...

Last week, I also wrote about my commitment to noticing the singularity of this summer—which is to say, to avoiding last year’s time warp when I realized that summer had passed, and I’d done nothing to appreciate it. I talked about how different summer vacations are now from when I was a kid—how today’s organized camps and outings have reshaped my generation’s unstructured time and neighborhood games. Well, this week, just to show how everything is connected to everything, retirement adventures and kids’ summer activities intersected.

I had planned to take another swell hike on Wednesday, but the smoke from the fire dissuaded me. (For those of you who aren’t in the Boulder area, there’s a major forest fire not far from here, and the result is not the clear mountain air we’re used to. It makes outdoor activities less enjoyable—and likely less healthy). So, I decided to visit Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science instead. 

Denver skyline from DMNS

        

There were lots of cool things to see, including a temporary photo exhibit on the Alaska Arctic (where I’ve been several times), and there's always lots to learn.  

But the best story is this: All around the museum were these swarms of kids in matching t-shirts. What a kick—these were the camp kids I mentioned in my blog! Here I am, an old woman, enlivening my summer vacation by exploring the museum, and I find myself surrounded by boisterous kids, enlivening their summer vacation by exploring the museum. Is this cool or what?

So much for the summer vacation “generation gap.” 

Welcome to the circle game.