Retirement: The Exciting Stage.

By Karen and Erica

So you retired,. You went through the first stages–fun, fear, fog–and now you are emerging. You have learned retirement-speak, so when you meet people you tell them, confidently, that you are enjoying the break from your successful career as you consider what’s next, and you would love their opinions about a project you might consider. 

The next step–come up with a real plan. You are ready.

What does that mean? It means that, if you have had an idea, recently or for decades, about how to spend your post-career years, you are now at the point where you can make it real.  You will take the first steps toward actually putting a plan in motion. You may wish to talk to people who know something first first–or you may just want to plunge in.

How might you start?

• You like writing, and you like drama, so maybe you will try your hand at writing a mystery. One in which a woman like you is the glamorous protagonist.
• You love to cook, and you have become friendly with the owners of a local food truck. Maybe you will offer to train to be their sous chef.
• You’ve always enjoyed touring new buildings, sometimes posing as your friend, the real estate agent’s, assistant. Maybe you will jump into real estate yourself and see if you can make a go of it. 
• You are a cultured and educated person, ready to learn even more. Maybe you will sign up for the rigorous training to be a docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  
• You would love to mentor younger, less fortunate women, helping them get a start. Maybe you will take a volunteer job at Bottomless Closet.
• You love to travel. Maybe you will become a flight attendant.
• You love to dance. Maybe you will start a dance company for people your age.

None of these ideas is imaginary. Lustre members have done them all, and much more. None of the specifics may be for you, but let these stories inspire you! 

Once you think and talk for a while, your plan will start to become tangible. The more you act on your idea, the more concrete it will be, and the more excited you will become. And you will discover that everyone you talk to will get excited too, and will come up with ways to help. 

Congratulations. It wasn’t easy getting here. It took a lot of work, and thought. And maneuvering around the friends who wanted you to do chores, and your former colleagues who insisted you were entitled to chillax. (Which you are, whenever you decide that is what you want to do.  But not now.)

Be prepared. Once you start, everything may turn out perfectly. You will be fulfilled and happy. But it may not. Your first idea may turn out to be a bust. Too much work. The people you thought you would work with do not have the imagination to see where you might fit in. You actually do not like doing what seemed in the abstract to be a great idea. You really do not want to have any obligations at all quite yet.

If that happens, don’t sweat it. Remember–you succeeded at a career for many years–even though you surely failed at a few things along the way. You are entitled to fail now too–more than once, should that happen. Because one of the joys of post-career life is that you can experiment. You can live a fantasy for a while, and then decide it should remain a fantasy. You can go to plan B. Or C. Just keep moving forward, keep meeting new people, and don’t do anything you discover is a waste of time.

You are in an amazing time of life, a time that most people have never had. Make the most of it. 

And please share with us in the comments what you end up doing. Keep the inspiration flowing.