“Retirement? That’s Not for Me! That’s for Some Old Person!”

A friend of mine invited me to attend a free luncheon with her last week.  All we had to do was listen to a financial advisor talk about retirement planning.  I thought I’d take the opportunity to see what it feels like to be “planning for retirement,” to sort of test the waters by considering the possibility.

After all, I’m 55 – I’m not embarrassed to admit this; I’m grateful to be the age I am – and have been unemployed for nearly two years.  I figured, who knows?  Maybe I have taken “early retirement,” only I just haven’t acknowledged this to myself yet. 

So I went to the luncheon.  The first thing I noticed was that, in my view, I was one of the youngest, if not the youngest, attendee there.  My impression was that many of my lunchmates had already been collecting Social Security for awhile.  (Isn’t it a little late to be planning for retirement when you’re already retired?)  But then, how many people can attend a lengthy luncheon in the middle of the week unless, like me, they’re not working?

There was lots of talk about stocks and bonds, cash and houses, pensions and 401k's, annuities and income streams.  In a way it was nice not to have to talk or think or hear about looking for a job.  No one there was jobhunting.  It was definitely a group of people whose immediate concerns were quite different from those that have been absorbing me.

In fact, after hearing about their concerns – making the money “last,” health and health decision-making issues, deciding what to leave to whom and how – it felt to me that, in one way or another, and without referring to it explicitly, these people were really talking about death.  I suddenly found the whole event quite depressing. 

It seemed like it was all over for this group of people except for the inevitable final details.  This was a bunch of future dead people, enjoying a free lunch.  No one was having fun.  These people were facing the fact that they were “done,” that everything that they were ever going to do or be or achieve was over.  Things were never going to be any better than they are now.  They were on the precipice -- of deterioration and decline.

Reality.  Maybe I can deal with reality except when it comes to me.  I don't think I have acknowledged, to myself, the fact that I'm getting older.  Or maybe the reality is that I don’t want to embrace the mindset and lifestyle of the retired person any sooner than I have to.  Why should I, when I’m not ready to?  When I still have a choice?

A choice to pursue a livelihood, to earn a living, to continue to explore what I want to be “when I grow up.”   I hear my skeptical “inner voice” cajoling me now: do you really think you have a choice, Fran?  How do you have a choice when you’ve been trying to find another job for nearly two years but haven’t been able to? 

I don’t know the answer to that.  Maybe the reality is that my choosing days are over.  I’m just not prepared to accept that as my reality yet.

Until I am – until I have to, or want to – I’m going to keep looking for work, just like all the other youthful, healthy, contributing members of the workforce who’ve been temporarily sidelined by this economy. 

These are the people with whom I’ll be lunching next time.  And every time after that, as long as I can.