Why We Started Lustre. Ten Foundational Ideas About Retiring And Age.

By Karen and Erica

Why did we start Lustre? Here’s the story.

We both had long careers as corporate lawyers. We loved our jobs, and everything (almost) that went with them. We knew they would end, but we didn’t really believe it. One day, they did. And just like that—we were retired.

Suddenly, overnight, we were nowhere. Invisible. Our skills and experience worthless. Our offer to do projects for non-profits, for free, rejected. Even our friends and families seemed to think we would morph from hard-charging, independent women into failed humans who would live vicariously through them.

They were panicked. We were panicked. What now?

We had given no thought to retirement, or age. We knew both would come, but that all seemed pretty far off, and very amorphous, until it arrived. Shockingly, overnight we became seen as retired and old. These ill-fitting words now defined us.

We had figure out why this was, and how to change it. So, we did.

We eventually learned one key thing—we are new. We are not yet seen as the people we really are.

• First, we probably have a thirty year runway—decades longer than when retirement was invented. That has huge implications for how we choose to live and how we manage resources.

• Second, for the first time ever, most of us will remain in good mental and physical form throughout, combining experience and sentience as long as we live. That’s revolutionary.

• Third, very few people know about points one and two. Too many—including many of us—still think that humans over 65 are old and done and should be sidelined for their own good—a media stereotype that may never have been true and is surely behind the times today.

So we decided, as we sat on a park bench eating sandwiches one sunny day, that we would challenge the stereotypes and show everyone who we really are. How would we do that? With a blog. How would we start a blog? We had no idea. So we came up with a plan—to get help and move forward one step at a time.

First, we needed a place to think. An office. We got one in a WeWork that used to be the Goldman Sachs HQ. It turned out to be party city, all day, every day. We moved to a quieter place—though still with a ping pong table in the lobby. We raised the tenant average age considerably. WeWork’s travails, and COVID, meant we had to give up that office, but now we have a new one—across from Saks! Indeed, Saks is morphing into its own coworking space!

Second, we needed a website. That was mysterious business. We found some lovely young men to help. They told us their mothers would be thrilled by what we were doing! We agonized over the look, and eventually achieved a clean, clear, elegant website.

Third, we needed a name. That was painful. We agonized over the name for about a hundred years. Lustre won the day.

Fourth, we needed to figure out what to put on the website. We agonized some more. We knew how to write briefs, but not much about writing for regular people, let alone how to create images to support the message. Our daughters helped with image. We sat down and figured out we would write about exactly the things that made us anxious—being seen as old and withdrawn because we were retired.

And then there was social media—another new and incomprehensible frontier. Some savvy young women helped us on that front, excited for their mothers!

In the middle of 2016, we dragooned a small coterie of friends and family into being our first subscribers, and we launched. Scared as could be that it was obvious we had no idea what we were doing.

We realized we had ten foundational ideas

1. We are are the forefront of the first large cohort of women who worked straight through to retirement.

2. Our cohort is growing every day. 

3. We have substantial resources.

4. We have lived lives that we shaped to suit ourselves.

5. We will do retirement differently from men.

6. Few, if any, images circulating in media or society show us as we are—vibrant and lively.

7. Many images show us as we are not—feeble, needy and vacant.

8. Post-career, we have no role models, just as when we entered the workforce. Once again, we have to be the role models.

9. Retirement, as it was invented in the 1950s, is completely outdated.

10. Retired career women will reinvent the post-career picture.

We worked to show us as we all are--active, engaged with the world, with money to spend, places to go, things to do. We addressed image, and identity, and prejudice, and stereotypes. We talked about style, and travel, and home. Lustre gave us contacts and entree to lots of people—people like us who felt as dislocated as we did, and other people, including many men, who liked Lustre’s message.

Of course there were some issues. Bookkeeping. Proofreading. No paycheck. And we have made any number of mistakes. Luckily, we know mistakes are not the end of the world.

It sure has been fun. We have watched Lustre grow, and we have been excited to hear from the many women who tell us fabulous stories of their own post-career journeys. Lustre is surely resonating with the people we were trying to reach.

We have many goals still to meet, and big challenges ahead. But a movement is underway and we’re enjoying the ride.

Thanks for joining us.