Insights

Then due to the sale of the business I was a partner in, I found myself faced with this new title: retired. Having worked very hard for nearly a year to coordinate the sale, I had ample warning. But I still never really believed this retirement thing would happen to me. Immersed in the business aspects of the deal, through countless changes in the closing date, I never dealt with the fact that when the deal was finally done, I would be unemployed. On April 27, 2005, the final closing date arrived. At 3:57 p.m., I was still involved in a business I loved. At 4 p.m., I was retired.

During the first chapter of my life, I had experienced growing up, college, marriage and motherhood. Following a divorce, my second chapter began with a 24-year career in real estate development. Now, ready or not, a new chapter was beginning. For about a month after the sale of the business, I found myself emotionally and physically exhausted; missing the people I worked with who had become like family as well as the residents and members of the golf community where I’d served as a managing partner. Some of my friends had the audacity to suggest that maybe I also missed being the boss.

Things changed when I awoke one day and realized what a wonderful gift I had been given. I was at an age when many people naturally retire. I was healthy. I had two wonderful children and was about to become a grandmother for the first time. In addition, I had moved into a new home and now had the time to finish decorating it. I could now enjoy life in a new, less hurried way.

Then the old work ethic took hold with frenzy. I filled my calendar with dinner parties for friends and charities (something I had not had much time for when I was working), lots of bridge, work on several charity and business boards, lots of evenings at the Phil, dinners and lunches with friends, book club, art history classes, travel, time with my new grandson and on and on. By the end of the first year of retirement I was exhausted, wondering how I had ever had time to go to work every day, forgetting, of course, that I didn’t do all these other things then. Don’t get me wrong, it was great fun. But as in all new ventures, I needed to learn to pace myself. During my second year of retirement, I have really worked at slowing down. It is decidedly a work in progress, but continues to be great fun.

The most important thing I’ve discovered during these past two years is that many of my retired friends and acquaintances—the ones who, in my daydreams, were sitting at home in easy chairs eating bonbons and watching TV while I was toiling away at work—were working just as hard with charitable and religious organizations and corporate boards, consulting and pursuing other endeavors. These folks truly belong to the "retired workforce," without which the quality of life for many in our country would suffer. I’m also much more aware of those people who have retired from their primary job but must continue working at minimum wage because their pensions or social security payments do not cover their
living expenses.

I also think about people I know who worked hard all of their lives so they could retire and enjoy "the good life" only to find themselves, within a very short period of time, too ill to enjoy the fruits of their labors. And, of course, most of us have had friends and relatives who died soon after retiring.

So while I never gave much thought to retirement, and most of my friends and family didn’t think that I could ever retire from the business world, I am just ecstatic about this new chapter in my life. As in the past, I am sure it will include happiness, sadness and accomplishments, but with a freedom that comes with age and being retired.

I do have one complaint, and that is with Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus, which describes retired as, among other things, "withdrawn, retreated, removed, leading a quiet life, secluding oneself, separating oneself, aloof" as opposed to "working, busy." The Webster definition certainly doesn’t describe most retired people that I know. How about you?