Earl’s Journey into Retirement
A New Stage in Life
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Earl had no idea how boring retirement could be.
After six months, the initial liberation from his long hours as a Hewlett-Packard product developer wore off. He had freedom, but he also had endless days. He played golf three times a week, joining a group of retired men. He initially enjoyed the camaraderie, but the game soon felt hollow.
“My wife couldn’t stand me moping around the house any longer. That’s why I’m here. It’s an escape,” confessed Charlie, voicing what they all felt.
Earl’s wife of 49 years, Jane, constantly had little tasks for him: fix the faucet, sweep the basement, weed the flowers. He knew he was slipping into a bitchy mood, resenting his role as a “fix-it” guy.
This wasn’t the retirement he’d worked so hard for. Golfing was an escape, but it didn’t fill the void. The camaraderie was good, but it lacked the routine and purpose of his old job.
Earl tried volunteering for Meals on Wheels to get off the golf course. It was a nice distraction, but it didn’t leverage his technical background. He quit, using a looming bad winter as an excuse.
The following summer, he and Jane tried traveling, taking a road trip through Canada, but checking in and out of motels felt like a repeat of his old HP travel days — it was “old hat.”
Jane, a retired high school teacher, was transitioning much better. She had her book club, sewing group, and regular requests to help with the grandkids.
“Go get a part-time job,” Jane finally suggested after the holidays, pointing out that Earl was watching about seven hours of TV a day.
Earl was irritated. Was she monitoring him? What was wrong with keeping up with “breaking news”?
He didn’t think about a part-time job again until six weeks later at the barbershop. He was waiting his turn when he overheard Dan, a local computer shop owner, folding his newspaper and muttering about how tight the labor market was.
“I’ve been looking for a part-timer to serve customers at my computer shop for a couple of months now,” Dan noted. “Can’t find anyone.”
“Who are you looking for?” Earl casually asked.
“We fix and maintain computers —and specialize in tech troubleshooting as a sideline for residents of senior living facilities around town for a flat yearly fee. We need someone with a tech background who can relate to the mature adult market.”
“Those with gray hair and who can tackle basic tech questions from us older people,” Earl clarified with a grin.
“Right. It’s something a high school kid can’t always do.”
“I may be your guy.”
Dan ended up hiring Earl. That was two years ago, and Earl is still working for him.
Earl can’t promise Jane he won’t someday slide back into feeling hollow, but, for now, he enjoys visiting his clients and helping them navigate the technology they need to stay in touch with their family and the world.
That’s Earl’s purpose right now. It’s been a jagged journey — from liberation from an all-consuming career to too-much golf and then flat volunteer work. But it was worth it. Time seems to slide by quickly as he gets to know each of his clients and their life stories as he helps them tackle technology.
And he still plays golf once in a while with the guys.
Earl’s takeaway tip: Take time to discover how to best shape retirement as a new stage in life.
Here’s to mature-adult living!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Graying”
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In 2005, I became certified as a Global Career Development Facilitator at 62 in the middle of a 17-year stint in which my content was geared toward helping people with disabilities find meaningful work.
In 2018, at 75, I still pictured myself as self-employed, trying to sell my disability-employment content online.
2018 was also the year Pam, my wife, and I decided to search for the right senior living community for us. We took two years to visit, research and compare seven different senior living facilities and finally decided to relocate from Madison, WI, to The Pillars of Prospect Park in Minneapolis to be near more of our family members.
That transition gave me a new appreciation for the four phases of retirement which took me 27 years to pass through.
And, thank you, George Dow, who recently spearheaded an OLLI course, “The Four Phases of Retirement” (see www.georgedow.com). George helped me recognize my own jagged journey into retirement.
At 51, I decided to quit my corporate communication job of 29 years to start my own consulting business in 1994. I felt “liberated” from the daily grind of office work.
After four years of making very little income, I finally admitted I was not cut out for the consulting world or corporate communication research. I call that my “disappointment” phase of retirement.
But a memoir I published in 1996 paved the way to an online content management job in 1999. It was for a nonprofit, where I worked full time for 10 years, writing and editing content about disability awareness and disability employment.
During another nine years after that, I had an opportunity to self-publish materials for helping parents of special needs children become “family career coaches.” Those 19 years were the “experimentation” phase of retirement, when I made a lot of connections but found I was not yet fully connecting with the people who needed my insight.
When Pam and I moved to The Pillars in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, I realized people of my age were not only finding their way through the four phases of retirement and the perils of the pandemic. They were trying to make sense of age-related limitations. This was my “discovery” phase of retirement.
I’m now dedicated to this one cause: using my experience with disability to help my fellow elders adjust psychologically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually to age-related vulnerability -- and provide them with the tools to share their insights and values with family and friends.
* When did you discover retirement had a new meaning for you?