The Un- of Retirement

I saw myself smiling on the Zoom screen. I was a bit nervous, half thinking I didn’t belong in the interview and half thinking maybe I did. I’d done a few podcasts about "unretirement"—not the dictionary version but the new cultural one, that retirement life is better with a bit of work in it. But this was my first journalist interview, someone taking notes and shaping a story.

The journalist was easy to talk to, and I relaxed as we talked about my new definition of "work." But when she casually mentioned that she’d “never retire,” I felt a small, internal bristle. I didn’t ask her why, and I didn’t take offense, but I understood. I used to see retirement as surrendering until I realized it didn’t have to follow that old blueprint. Yet there I was, the retired one, somewhere between comfort and ambition, and part of the “unretirement” story: not only people who need the income, but also those of us who see retirement as an opportunity to build a new kind of “working” life. Not work in the employment sense, but a center of gravity we still want in our lives, something we’re tending in our own way.

But even with a fresh label, charting a course between a beautifully open calendar and the full machinery of a traditional job isn’t easy. For me, it’s been about finding middle ground. I want a serious pursuit in the mix—not the full-throttle kind of job I used to have or the hyper-drive retirement industry reinvention noise, but not a life that’s entirely about planning the next bucket-list item either. The middle ground has always been hard for me—I tend to overdo whatever I’ve fixed on. For years it was work. Now it’s staying in my work without letting it take over while keeping the discipline to stay with it. There’s a reckoning between the fantasy of wanting something and the reality of doing it. And for me, doing it means sitting down and keeping at it.

As I was settling into the discipline of writing, a friend mentioned she and her husband were heading off to track the Milky Way, picking the right spot and right time in the Western U.S. sky as they tour the area in their RV. It sounded so entrancing, almost absurdly so. She’s following the stars; I’m following the words. But I look up too.

After the Zoom call ended, I jotted a few things in my open notebook and looked back at some words I’d written earlier to see if they still buzzed in my head—sometimes a word can do that. I sat with what I’d written for a while before getting up to empty the dishwasher, make lunch, and water my flower gardens. I was back at my desk in the late afternoon—I love the way the sun hits the window then. I was deep into a story that was forming in my mind. I wrote a few lines, but they weren’t there yet. I moved a few others around, deleted an entire paragraph, and stared out the window trying to put words to a thought.

And right there, facing that jumbled, uncooperative page with my mind flying faster than I could type, I felt the lingering need to explain myself evaporate. I was doing the work all along, making the stubborn, wonderful commitment to keep coming back. I didn’t need a label to make it real. I just needed to claim it.

As I finally admitted where I belonged, I noticed a rabbit outside, sitting under the witch hazel bush. I stared at him. He stared back. He sat there for a while and started scratching his ear. I swear he was thinking, “Oh, for God’s sake. It’s about time.”