Retired, But Not Finished
What’s next when the old answers stop working?
“Retired.”
I winced when someone called me that. All my fears wrapped up in those two syllables.
Even 18 months in, I don’t really accept the label.
After 50 years of conventional work, I stopped the grind. But I don’t feel retired. I’m just asking myself, what’s next?
No more 60-hour weeks.
No more three a.m. anxiety.
No more constant nausea or the dread of what waits in my inbox.
For decades, work colonised every waking hour — and too many of the sleeping hours.
I carried not just my own worries but other people’s hopes, fears and frustrations. At times it pushed me to the edge.
We all carry our own load. But it’s not prominently advertised that we’ll have to carry the load for others when we sign up.
It sounds good to leave all that behind, right?
Not so fast.
When it ended, I thought relief would be easy.
Instead, I grieved.
It’s strange to mourn something that was grinding you down, but humans cling to familiar routines like life rafts — even when they’re sinking.
My habits and structures kept me feeling safe, even when they were toxic. I was burned out, stressed, depressed. My bloodwork showed cortisol well into the red every time. My body was keeping score — and I was losing.
It wasn’t all bad, before I slumped into “poor me.”
I achieved a lot. The financial strains my parents and grandparents dealt with passed me by as life went on.
But still — when the change came, it was hard.
There’s another, subtler weight in all this: the question “What do you do?”
It’s the second thing people ask after hello.
I winced at the question. Tended to play down the answer because of the quiet judgment it invited.
We don’t like to admit it, but it’s a subtle sorting mechanism — a way to rank one another, to calibrate who’s important.
If we asked instead, “Who are you?” there wouldn’t be an easy answer. No safe badge to flash, no quick hierarchy to establish.
I remember meeting former colleagues after I left corporate life.
The young up-and-comers abandoned me ruthlessly. With no credible answer to “what do you do?” my value seemed to evaporate.
So what do I say now?
I want to pay forward the skills I built over 50 years. I now advise two small businesses. It’s rewarding — still an intellectual challenge, but with a deeper human connection and none of the crushing responsibility.
I play the bass guitar every day.
I’m 30 thousand words into my first novel — a noir about a shamed ex-detective in Soho.
But when I lay this out, I can see the calculation in people’s eyes: Oh, he’s retired. Has time on his hands.
Yes and no.
The truth is, the old career definitions fell away.
For the first time in decades, I’m trying to see myself whole. As though the full person is finally stepping out of the shadows.
As a kid, writing was my escape. My private world. Music was something I wanted to explore, but I had no real avenue to do so.
I got the message early that these were self-indulgent, impractical.
Get a job. Earn money. Be useful.
And fair enough — we all need roofs over our heads and food on the table. But somewhere along the way, the who got lost in the what.
I don’t regret following that path.
I played the “what do you do” game well.
But now? “What” takes second place — at least for me.
The real danger isn’t financial. I’m fortunate there.
It’s drift.
That anxiety about making an unspoken deal with myself to quietly fade toward the finish line. Doing less and less. Retreating further and further. Then one day — gone.
I don’t want that.
If I’m lucky, I have 20 more years.
That’s the real gift.
Not “what do you do?” but freedom and possibility.
It took me time to see that. Decades of conditioning don’t just fall away. But I think I see the opening now — the one marked “Who are you?” It’s not easy to answer. I may never answer it completely. Yet already, I’m seeing deeper conversations in my day-to-day.
Not the measuring and grading of what do you do? More engaged, real exchanges that begin with genuine interest instead of status.
I may never be able to answer the question of who I am. But that’s the gift. That’s the journey.
Can I turn 20 years of slow drift into 20 years of opportunity and exploration?
Let’s see.
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