By Karen and Erica

Retirement is not just the end of your career. It is the beginning of something new.

We were chatting the other day with a man who stopped working on Wall Street when he was 50, and moved to Asia to invest for himself. Now 75, he returned to the U.S. to do something different. This man referred to himself as retired since the age of 50.

Hmmm. We agree he pivoted from one job to another, but we would not call him retired. Except in the sense that he pivoted. Which is exactly how we see retirement—as a pivot point.

In the twenty-first century we can expect to live into our nineties, especially we women. We are healthier, mentally and physically, than ever. If we retire in our early sixties, by choice or otherwise, are we really going to sit peacefully in rocking chairs for several decades?

For many of us, the answer is no. For us, retirement from a long career is simply another point of reference. Where are we now? No longer climbing the career ladder, and free from child raising, we have time, and an enviable foundation of experience. Maybe we want to help those in the job we once had. Maybe we want to use our experience for something totally novel. Whatever it may be, we are on the move. We won’t start at the beginning, either, even if we do start something new. Working for decades has given us a powerful base for whatever we choose to do. If we are lucky enough to be financially secure, we are ready to soar.

If you have just retired, you may feel as if you have reached the end of the world you knew and loved, and are in a strange and cold place where you have yet to find your footing. That’s completely to be expected. Or, you may feel blessed relief from quotidian workplace bonds. Either way, take some time to relax and have fun and catch up on the sleep and streaming that you missed for the last decades.

Then when you are restored, think about what is next. If having no commitments whatsoever makes you happy, great. If not, after you have been retired for a while you will start to visualize how you want to do retirement. Luckily for you, there are few real role models, even now. What an opportunity! You can create anything you want.

Soon enough, you will realize that retirement is not the last stop of your journey. It is a pivot point to something that could be entirely of your own devising. We’ll bet that’s never happened before. Congratulations!