Retirement straight talk: the self-discovery that it's not a simple transition but a new phase in life

School Administrator, Feb, 2004 by Donald R. Draayer

On the morning of my 65th birthday I walked out the front door of our home to pick up the newspaper. Hanging between two trees was a 4-foot-by-8-foot Happy Birthday sign, placed there during the night by neighborhood teen-agers who had grown up while I was their superintendent.

What tugged my heart, of course, was their thoughtfulness, but what first caught my eye were the big letters "DR." in front of my name. in retirement almost no one calls me "doctor" anymore.

Obviously, this particular transition is minor, even petty, but that's not the case with other transitions I've encountered since I retired in 1995. After 38 years as a teacher and school administrator, including 24 years as the superintendent in Minnetonka, Minn., I have discovered that retirement is not one transition, but many, affecting all aspects of life.

As a farmer's son, I long have viewed learning like new growth that springs forth from moist, fertile ground. I entered education to be the planter, the gardener and the harvester. This transforming magic fulfilled me all of my professional days and gave special purpose to my life.

However, I am finding that retirement is like virgin soil. The ground must be cleared, plowed and fertilized. New possibilities must be turned over in the mind and heart. Learning doesn't end in retirement; it shifts to brand new terrain.

My own journey appears to be following the nine distinct stages of retirement culled from stories of 300-plus educators who have shared their retirement stories with me in the process of writing a book on this subject. However, each story is unique. Like the Russian proverb says, "There is no pathway; the pathway is made by walking."

My retirement has surfaced a multitude of interconnected decisions, raw emotions and values that I must examine not once, twice, but nearly every day in every nook and cranny of being and doing. Like an earthquake, my retirement has given rise to everything from minor tremors to major aftershocks.

Rude Awakening

Although the concept of retirement is well engrained by such things as paycheck withdrawals for Social Security, the reality of retirement can come like a gentle whisper in the night or a lion's roar, loud and threatening. My awakening was not a heart attack, cancer or other illness. It was this invitation from a friend: "Would you please present yourself to a distinguished group of educators for possible group membership?"

My friend, a retired superintendent, refused to say more. "Trust me," he said. Of course, I went.

The 85 educators--all older, many retired, and each holding a well-established reputation--started with dinner and then moved to another room. They instituted a ritual that enjoined me in some good-natured teasing. They flattered me. They honored me. And then they voted unanimously to approve my membership. They labeled me, "Soon to be retired." It was a defining moment in my head.

Raw Emotions

Then the emotional furies that accompanied my retirement first appeared. Can I afford to retire, having worked in several states with no full pension rights anywhere? Where will we live? Should I, or could I, do some other work for a few years? If so, what jobs are available? Am I employable?

My parents, married during the Great Depression, worked long hours on their vegetable farm and required similar effort from all four of their children (including me, the oldest). Concurrently, country school teachers fed high expectations in matters of the mind. The strong work ethic they instilled turned out for me to be a life sentence.

Thus, the joys of my retirement were overshadowed by fears about retirement. Work so defined me over the decades that I wondered, "If I no longer work, what good am I?" Work associates, neighbors and friends unknowingly fed this fire of self-examination: "What will you be doing in your retirement?" My mind associated doing with work because a lifetime of service had made task completion and self-worth close relatives, if not identical twins.

Early on I yielded to an inner voice that said, "Retirement is O.K. if you include enough work-related activities." I told people that I was going to be an educational consultant and handed them my newly minted "business" card. It was like a security blanket in the months prior to my last day of work.

Relationship Upheaval

Life in the fast track as a superintendent is a huge contrast to home alone as a retiree. I discovered that the receptionist's "hello" in the morning and the evening custodian's "good night" had been meaningful social encounters. They acknowledged my existence. They affirmed a team relationship in which every person, regardless of title or role, gave and received. Community is born in the midst of such human interaction.

Retirement severs a host of relationships or puts them on a different plane. Meetings with mayors, United Way officials and community activists cease. No longer are computer specialists at your beck and call when a hardware or software glitch develops. No longer do people button-hole you about this or that project.