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ALPart 7 | Life After the Title, Thoughts on Retirement
When I retired, I didn’t just lose a job. I lost a version of myself I knew I’d never get back.
The routines. The recognition. The identity. That version existed longer than any other. It quietly became who I was – or at least who I thought I was.
The loss was quiet. Easy to dismiss. But someone that played a central role in my life had just suddenly disappeared.
When I was a kid, my mother and I were looking through old family photos. She smiled and sighed at my baby pictures. I remember asking her “Do you wish I was still a baby?” And she of course replied, “Of course not! I mean, I loved you as a baby. You were the sweetest little thing with your own personality. I just miss that baby. But then you were a toddler and I loved that toddler. So fun, and exhausting. I just miss that toddler.” And so on.
She explained that she loved me at every age. But while every new stage brought exciting new things, she couldn’t help but miss what had come before. It didn’t make the new version any less lovable – in fact, maybe she loved each one a little more? (or maybe she’d just loved each subsequent version a little longer?).
Moving into retirement feels similar. It’s possible to miss the former version of myself and also be excited for what comes next. And even though I want to just feel the exciting part, I still feel the loss of what was. And that’s ok.
How did you feel a sense of loss when you reached a new phase in life?
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We’re Peter and Sandy. We’ve loved the time we spent working full-time and raising our family. But we also looked forward to when we’d be able to switch gears and “do stuff” just for us! People warned “You’ll be so bored!” or “What will you do all day?” Nope. We’re too busy doing the things we thought we didn’t have time for before. Everything is so much more interesting now that we’ve adopted the WHY NOT? mindset!
#RetirementIdentity #LifeAfterWork #EarlyRetirement #LifeAfterTheTitle #GenXRetirement
@albertisdostuff
