It’s Just a Stage

Transitions are natural, but not always smooth

Photo by Ashley Rich on Unsplash

One day last week, the high temperature reached 75 degrees and it was time to bring out the short sleeve shirts and short pants. That was immediately followed by a two-day cold snap with highs in only the 40s, and it was back to long pants and overcoats.

That’s the way winter transitions to spring in the Mid-Atlantic – in fits and starts. You don’t know what to expect from day to day – or even from morning to afternoon – so you had best observe carefully and be prepared to make the necessary adjustments.

Most transitions in my life also have consisted of fits and starts – two steps forward, three steps back. It seldom feels as if I am moving in a direction, yet eventually I find myself in a different place from where I started. In the same way, winter eventually plays itself out and spring emerges triumphant.

I would much prefer winter to depart punctually and finally on March 19 and spring to unpack its bags the next day. It would allow me to maintain a more efficient closet. But that is just not how the seasons operate. Nor, in my experience, is that how our most significant life transitions play out.

What Comes After Work

The fits-and-starts pattern particularly characterizes the major life transition from full-time work to that state formerly known as “retirement” and which I prefer to call “The AfterWork.” I have interviewed dozens of people in recent months about their personal experiences of the transition. A few say it was smooth sailing – they could hardly wait to kiss work goodbye and have no regrets. A few others say they can’t let go of work and may keep at it as long as their health allows them. Many – perhaps the majority – cheerfully took the leap into The AfterWork but encountered surprises and difficulties that made their transition bumpy and complex.  

For those who stake their identity on what they do, the leap was more like a dive into a drained swimming pool. “My husband’s self-esteem has always been cued externally,” a semi-retired woman told me. “He had big deal jobs, and the day he retired, he lost that. He started to lose his confidence,  and he felt irrelevant. I did not like how he looked or how he seemed.” (After several years, she reports, he found his happy place by joining three boards and staying busy, “and he’s just so much happier.”)

Others said they wanted to do something different in The AfterWork but weren’t sure what it might be. And some had plans that crumbled or at least were put on hold. Ambitious travel plans yielded to the worldwide Covid pandemic. A couple’s plan for a second home collided with one partner’s declining health. Aging parents suddenly required more care. A life partner died.

Nearly 50 years ago, sociologist Robert Atchley proposed that the typical transition to retirement was a five-stage affair:

1.       The honeymoon – when retirees rejoice in their new freedom and free time.

2.       The disenchantment – the emotional letdown as they face the reality of everyday retired life.

3.       The reorientation – when retirees develop a realistic view of their opportunities and constraints.

4.       Stability – when people adjust to retirement.

5.       Termination – when retirees lose their independence because of illness or disability.

What’s Different Now

The main thing that has changed in the intervening 50 years is longer lifespans – and longer healthspans – for many who stop working. With the prospect of 30 to 40 more years ahead, perpetual golf and pina coladas lose their allure. What has not changed is that many adults – perhaps as many as one-third – find it difficult to navigate the transition.

Perhaps we’re not well prepared. “Retirement planning” has been treated as a synonym for financial planning, but that leaves out the necessary emotional and psychological adjustments – including, according to one sociologist, “partial identity disruption, decision paralysis, diminished self trust, experience of a post-retirement void, the search for meaningful engagement in society.…”He goes on, but you get the idea.

Wouldn’t we love to skip all that? Hell yeah! Had we our druthers, we would go for instant metamorphosis. If we could, we would even go straight from caterpillar to butterfly and skip the intermediary step.

Tempting, but not necessarily wise. It’s worth remembering that the caterpillar’s chrysalis is more than her short-term rental. It’s also her personal gym. She works out her fledgling wings by doing pushups against the chrysalis’s walls, and miraculously, when the wings are strong enough for flying, they’re strong enough to push Madame Butterfly out of the chrysalis and into the next stage of her life.

We will undertake many transitions in our later years in addition to the passage from work to The AfterWork: Changes in health, changes in our partnerships, changes in relationships with our children, changes in our outlook on the world. Sometimes the transition will be in progress before we realize it. Sometimes it seems to take forever with no forward momentum. From talking to those who have been there, I suggest these lessons: Be patient. Don’t give up. Don’t take shortcuts. Transitions may not be smooth, but they are always necessary and – more often than not – highly rewarding.   

Has Your Transition Been Bumpy? Let’s Talk About It

I want to interview people about their own retirement experience for a book I’m researching. If you care to share your story, please email me at don@donakchin.com to set up a remote interview.