Excerpted from Poised for Retirement: Moving from Anxiety to Zen, by Louise Nayer. Nayer, a longtime OLLI memoir writing instructor, is the featured speaker at our Nov. Vital Aging Forum "Retirement: Emotional Planning."
Finding New Identities
As the Amtrak train, The Vermonter, snakes its way through fields exploding with flowers and into the lushness of a New England summer, my sister wonders what it will be like to finally be an apprentice puppeteer at The Bread and Puppet Theater. She created puppet shows for children in Montreal, and in St. Thomas where she performed in Special Ed classrooms; she’s always wanted to continue this dream — magical entertainment. The marionettes she inherited from a close friend of the family have been gathering dust for years. But they’ve always been there, in her house, like a wish, buried but not forgotten.
She is almost 69 years old, a brave soul as she knows no one at the workshop. Her hands will soon be designing puppets and stages every day. She will live in the world she has longed to be in for so long. She just called the other day from Vermont. “I ran away and joined the circus!”
Many of us never revisit the worlds we have loved and lost.
Going back to doing things you loved to do or trying out new hobbies can be both exhilarating and challenging. At 50 years old, my father, who worked full time as a physician, began piano lessons with Mr. Diaz, who taught my sister and me piano over many years.
My dad, not a “natural” in terms of his ear, practiced every night. He started with “Three Blind Mice” putting on the metronome to help him keep time. His hands, burned from an explosion in 1954, didn’t have the ability to open very far and that frustrated him. “Damn it, damn it” I’d hear him say as he hit the keys. He did this for three years and finally made it to the piece “Solfigetto.”
I remember being curious that my father would practice piano every night and at times was unkind, as teenagers can be. Three years and he’s only gotten to Solfigetto! Now I wish I could go back and hug him — tell him how amazing that after a full day of work, he wants to learn to play music, to go out of his comfort zone.
As retirees we can throw ourselves into all kinds of activities and not worry about “being the best.” Author Paul Coelho says, “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve; the fear of failure.” Becoming a prima ballerina or climbing
Everest might not be in the picture but taking a ballet class or a hike on a nearby mountain as long as we are able-bodied, are achievable goals. As we “grow up,” what Peter Pan warns us not to do, we often shed earlier selves: the long-distance runner pushing through aches and pain and getting into “the zone;” the doodler with multi-colored markers, deftly drawing horses, the cook, the builder, the guitar maker. Ruth Reichl, an American chef and food writer, says that “one of the secrets to staying young is to always do things you don’t know how to do, to keep learning.”
I remember taking a dance class at a local YMCA. A woman who clearly had a left/right problem came regularly and when she went the wrong way and often used the wrong foot, nobody cared. She got the same amount of exercise as everyone else and formed important friendships in that class. She wasn’t going to let her dyslexia get in the way.
Senior centers, community colleges and universities are just some of the places that offer a wide variety of classes for older adults. Endless possibilities exist.
Shedding your work “identity” and reclaiming what you loved to do in the past is in many ways taking a leap of faith. The unknown is both scary and exciting.
A Plan
Sometimes a plan can begin by asking the question: what gives your life meaning? Frankl, psychiatrist and holocaust survivor says, “The meaning of life differs from man to man (woman to woman) day to day, from hour to hour. What matters, there, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” Everyone is unique.
My friend, Dixie, a Montessori teacher, left her job at 64 years old to help take care of her grandchildren. Her daughter moved to Oregon and had twin sons and needed a lot of help. She and her husband sold their house and moved near their daughter. Her role as “Grandma” gives her life meaning and in fact she can use her Montessori lesson plans with her grandchildren.
For me, who wanted time to write, the San Francisco Grotto gave me a community and inspiration. I knew I would need support — as writers work in isolation — and I would need a new community. Before I retired, I visited the Grotto, went through the sacred doors into a sea of offices where writers cranked out novels, plays, articles every day and met for lunch around the big conference room table. Knowing that I would have this community after I left City College, lightened my spirits.
For many, helping others gives life meaning. For most of us, in big or small ways, it is the meaning of our lives. Jim knew he would volunteer once a week at the senior center after he left his job. He would still see the people he loved—shoot a game of pool, call bingo and then leave without having to fix things.
Many people go back to their place of work — whether to work one day a week — or to volunteer. They still want that connection. Others walk out the door never to return. They are ready for a completely new life.
Ways to Calm Yourself
Losing your work identity can feel like the “end” but it is a beginning of something new. Ways to calm yourself can be to focus on what you will be able to do when you retire: whether it’s to not have to set the alarm clock, a BIG plus, to have more time with your children or grandchildren, to finally join a book club, to go back to your workplace one day a week, get a part-time job, join a walking group, write your memoir, or to get in shape by going to the local pool.
I listened to meditation tapes at night to calm me down and often to my hypnosis tape made for me by my hypnotist so many years ago. The tape starts with “And now you are 42 years old,” and I smile to myself as I’m now going on 67. But it still works. Sometimes, before bed, you can begin by tensing your face and letting go. Tense your shoulders and let go. Do that for the rest of your body down to your toes. You will certainly feel more relaxed and can then breathe deeply into any areas of your body that are giving you problems.
Another good way to prepare for retirement and to calm yourself is to start some of the new activities in the months before retirement; this smooths the transition. My friend, Ken, who plans to retire in the next year or two, had never done anything with his college alumni organization, but recently is doing volunteer work and giving talks to undergrads to help them as they navigate the world of art history. When he does retire, he will be embraced, already, by this new community.
For those who are not sure what they want to do — put five ideas in a hat — for example, photographer, birder, memoirist, painter, singer, and pick one each of the five months before retirement. Is there a singing group nearby you could join? A class on photography at the nearby community college? A memoir teacher? A senior center with artists who teach painting? Get a friend to come with you. Imagine yourself as a child again, open and free to go on adventures.
The “void” can seem scary, a black hole that will suck you into nothingness. Some definitions of void contain the words useless, ineffectual, devoid, destitute. Perhaps we imagine ourselves with no money pushing a shopping cart or like Shakespeare’s King Lear, stripped of royalty, abandoned by two of his daughters, naked and alone in the middle of a terrible storm. In reality there are no voids. Something will appear—a stray cat that needs to be cared for—a disabled friend to tend to--a young person looking for tutoring after school—a call from a dear friend who wants to visit and now you have time to really be with her—and maybe a regular practice—exercise, yoga, reading. For those people who don’t have a concrete plan, life will continue in mysterious ways. Nature abhors a vacuum. Life will continue in new and unexpected ways. The poet, Hafiz, reminds us beautifully of the possibilities in his poem “Hemispheres.”
“Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out…
Open up to the roof…
Change rooms in your mind for a day…
Greet yourself
In your thousand other forms.”
Louise Nayer is an educator and author of six books, including Poised for Retirement: Moving from Anxiety to Zen. Her book Burned: A Memoir was an Oprah Great Read and won the Wisconsin Library Association Award. Her latest memoir is Narrow Escapes. She is a member of The Writer's Grotto and teaches at OLLI.
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