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You know, for many people in the last ten years, "The Big Day" did not play out like that at all. As for me, I lost my long term job at age 58 1/2 abruptly in 2010 due to budget cuts and then I saw my salary handed over to the VP that dumped me and the others – a generous 100k increase in her salary. One minute I was in the middle of a meeting with a client, was called out of it, and fifteen minutes later, was being frogmarched to the door as I passed coworkers who had no idea what was going on but were trying to get my attention to stop and discuss a project. It was quite unsettling. They kept a couple of the people in the cheaper seats who I had hired. Eventually, the entire department was shut down.
The economy at the time was not kind to people in my cohort because of age and I don't think it's improved much, if at all. I was also in a profession (graphic design) that is generally thought of as a younger person's gig. I cast about looking for full-time work unsuccessfully, did some freelance work (had one really nice recurring job for about a year until that company entered bankruptcy), did about a year's penance working in a retail copy shop on my feet all day which was brutal, and finally faced the fact that I would have to sell my house to keep going. Luckily, the housing market was starting to come back here and though I would have gotten more for the house a few years before, at least it sold quickly. As a single woman without a partner's second salary, I limped along as long as I could. I would have preferred to bank that money and not touch it, but that was not possible. It gave me the means to rent an apartment and I continued with freelance work (ironically, for another department in the place that dumped me) until their changing needs and my increasing anxiety made me say, "No mas."
I held out taking my social security until I was 63. It was the only way I could buy health insurance through the exchanges ... I had to have an "income." But, for the ability to have insurance during this gap time, I will be forever grateful. In January, I plan to start my modest pension and I will begin Medicare. I have been reluctant to call myself "retired" after working all my life, but I find my anxiety is reduced and that alone is worth a lot. I am relieved to no longer put up with the day to day petty and capricious baloney of office politics. I still miss some of my coworkers but get together periodically with the ones I want to see. I was twenty years older (and forty years older than some!) than the next "kid" at the copy shop but am friends with several of them on Facebook. I was a competent employee and I will be a competent retiree.
I'm working on moving out of state in the next year and will live modestly but hopefully, contentedly. I have any number of projects and activities that I want to do. I may have a McJob at some point and/or I will freely give my "work" for some deserved cause. I may buy that old RV I want and take my cats with me on the road. Some days I just want to goof off. I'm planning to embrace this retirement thing – where within reason – I am the mistress of my days.
There will be no disenchantment. You just do your best to roll with the punches.
You know, for many people in the last ten years, "The Big Day" did not play out like that at all. As for me, I lost my long term job at age 58 1/2 abruptly in 2010 due to budget cuts and then I saw my salary handed over to the VP that dumped me and the others – a generous 100k increase in her salary. One minute I was in the middle of a meeting with a client, was called out of it, and fifteen minutes later, was being frogmarched to the door as I passed coworkers who had no idea what was going on but were trying to get my attention to stop and discuss a project. It was quite unsettling. They kept a couple of the people in the cheaper seats who I had hired. Eventually, the entire department was shut down.
The economy at the time was not kind to people in my cohort because of age and I don't think it's improved much, if at all. I was also in a profession (graphic design) that is generally thought of as a younger person's gig. I cast about looking for full-time work unsuccessfully, did some freelance work (had one really nice recurring job for about a year until that company entered bankruptcy), did about a year's penance working in a retail copy shop on my feet all day which was brutal, and finally faced the fact that I would have to sell my house to keep going. Luckily, the housing market was starting to come back here and though I would have gotten more for the house a few years before, at least it sold quickly. As a single woman without a partner's second salary, I limped along as long as I could. I would have preferred to bank that money and not touch it, but that was not possible. It gave me the means to rent an apartment and I continued with freelance work (ironically, for another department in the place that dumped me) until their changing needs and my increasing anxiety made me say, "No mas."
I held out taking my social security until I was 63. It was the only way I could buy health insurance through the exchanges ... I had to have an "income." But, for the ability to have insurance during this gap time, I will be forever grateful. In January, I plan to start my modest pension and I will begin Medicare. I have been reluctant to call myself "retired" after working all my life, but I find my anxiety is reduced and that alone is worth a lot. I am relieved to no longer put up with the day to day petty and capricious baloney of office politics. I still miss some of my coworkers but get together periodically with the ones I want to see. I was twenty years older (and forty years older than some!) than the next "kid" at the copy shop but am friends with several of them on Facebook. I was a competent employee and I will be a competent retiree.
I'm working on moving out of state in the next year and will live modestly but hopefully, contentedly. I have any number of projects and activities that I want to do. I may have a McJob at some point and/or I will freely give my "work" for some deserved cause. I may buy that old RV I want and take my cats with me on the road. Some days I just want to goof off. I'm planning to embrace this retirement thing – where within reason – I am the mistress of my days.
There will be no disenchantment. You just do your best to roll with the punches.
Thanks for sharing your story. It resonates with me. Even though I haven't been down this exact same path, I easily could have and maybe still could. You sound very brave and have such a positive attitude. It's inspiring. Roll with the punches - I agree and it sounds simple to say, but its learned through traveling down some very rocky roads.
I wish you peace and contentment on the rest of your journey!
It's been almost 12 years for me. Can't say there was much of a disappointment stage, I just went into stage 5 - moved cross county from big city life to a rural one and enjoying my quiet routine, adopting and living with lots of senior black labs.
I retired eight years ago, my wife died a couple of months into my retirement and I found myself alone in a new, very small town. Went through a "reinvention" period, met a nice woman, remarried, sold my house and moved a hundred miles away. Retirement isn't unlike the working life with regard to the usual surprises and necessary responses.
I now realize the only thing that really stops is the job, every other aspect of life is still there for us to deal with. The media has done no favors for workers by romanticizing retirement as a never ending paradisaical adventure. At seventy one I have no notions of working, but I'm still going through, and responding, to changes, mental and physical, life is slower but it's still a challenge, and with any luck it will remain so.
You know, for many people in the last ten years, "The Big Day" did not play out like that at all. As for me, I lost my long term job at age 58 1/2 abruptly in 2010 due to budget cuts and then I saw my salary handed over to the VP that dumped me and the others – a generous 100k increase in her salary. One minute I was in the middle of a meeting with a client, was called out of it, and fifteen minutes later, was being frogmarched to the door as I passed coworkers who had no idea what was going on but were trying to get my attention to stop and discuss a project. It was quite unsettling. They kept a couple of the people in the cheaper seats who I had hired. Eventually, the entire department was shut down.
The economy at the time was not kind to people in my cohort because of age and I don't think it's improved much, if at all. I was also in a profession (graphic design) that is generally thought of as a younger person's gig. I cast about looking for full-time work unsuccessfully, did some freelance work (had one really nice recurring job for about a year until that company entered bankruptcy), did about a year's penance working in a retail copy shop on my feet all day which was brutal, and finally faced the fact that I would have to sell my house to keep going. Luckily, the housing market was starting to come back here and though I would have gotten more for the house a few years before, at least it sold quickly. As a single woman without a partner's second salary, I limped along as long as I could. I would have preferred to bank that money and not touch it, but that was not possible. It gave me the means to rent an apartment and I continued with freelance work (ironically, for another department in the place that dumped me) until their changing needs and my increasing anxiety made me say, "No mas."
I held out taking my social security until I was 63. It was the only way I could buy health insurance through the exchanges ... I had to have an "income." But, for the ability to have insurance during this gap time, I will be forever grateful. In January, I plan to start my modest pension and I will begin Medicare. I have been reluctant to call myself "retired" after working all my life, but I find my anxiety is reduced and that alone is worth a lot. I am relieved to no longer put up with the day to day petty and capricious baloney of office politics. I still miss some of my coworkers but get together periodically with the ones I want to see. I was twenty years older (and forty years older than some!) than the next "kid" at the copy shop but am friends with several of them on Facebook. I was a competent employee and I will be a competent retiree.
I'm working on moving out of state in the next year and will live modestly but hopefully, contentedly. I have any number of projects and activities that I want to do. I may have a McJob at some point and/or I will freely give my "work" for some deserved cause. I may buy that old RV I want and take my cats with me on the road. Some days I just want to goof off. I'm planning to embrace this retirement thing – where within reason – I am the mistress of my days.
There will be no disenchantment. You just do your best to roll with the punches.
... Gee, this is quite similar to my experience(s), too, CatzPaw! Thank you for saying it "out loud".
After I'd hit 62 and was once-again unemployed, the future wasn't looking very bright (and I wasn't wearing shades). I too experienced the "frog-march" to the door, which was simply unbelievable - I was flabbergasted that I was walked-out and left outside the building with nary an explanation.
It was well over a year before I found any of what might be termed "gainful" employment, and that only after I had started to take my Social Security in order for us to maintain some semblance of normalcy.
Once I was (finally!) hired for a long-term contract, we (DW and I) were able to start breathing-easier about our prospects.
A year later, we began planning for our retirement, in earnest; and today, we're less-than a year away from actually "pulling the cord" on it.
Once I get into retirement, my "plan" is to purchase another set of drums and dial-up some of my old musician friends, to see if there are any possibilities to work together. Kind-of like what MATHJAK is doing.
... Less Than 300 Days! ...
When you retire early, you will have a series of different retirements as what your wants/needs/abilities at age 50 are very different from your wants/needs/abilities as you age.
We decided we'd live in a series of 5 year plans.....all different, all requiring long distant moves to places we'd never lived before retirement (never thought we'd live full-time in Mexico for five years, but we dd and it was a blast!).
Couldn't be happier! We are in Plan #3 now (living in a funky beach town) and already day-dreaming about where Plan #4 will take us.
Other couples we know who either retired in place or moved to a 55+ community have either since relocated or admit they are a tad bored.
We decided we'd live in a series of 5 year plans.....all different, all requiring long distant moves to places we'd never lived before retirement (never thought we'd live full-time in Mexico for five years, but we dd and it was a blast!).
<MORE SNIP>
Other couples we know who either retired in place or moved to a 55+ community have either since relocated or admit they are a tad bored.
... The bolded part of your post is what I'm proposing to do, too. I embrace most change; DW less-so.
I figure, if we get through 2 of the 5-year plans before we end-up somewhere permanently, we'll be doing well.
But, basing our retirement on "5-year plans" is exciting, and challenging! We haven't even begun the first 'plan' yet, but I'm excited to get going on it! ... Next Year!
...
... what phase are you and how long do you think you have spent in each phase?
1. Pre-retirement - Planning Time
2. The Big Day - Smiles, Handshakes, Farewells
3. Honeymoon Phase - I'm Free!
4. Disenchantment - So this is it?
5. Reorientation - Building a New Identity
6. Routine - Moving On
My retirement honeymoon lasted a couple weeks.
We moved and built new identities that lasted about 3 years. Then we moved again and built second post-retirement identities.
This year we have had a shake-up and we are now going through yet another phase to a different kind of identity.
I am 15 years post-retirement.
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I embrace most change; DW less-so. 
