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NINE
Retirement and Reinvention
Malinda was 65 when she officially retired from her position as a university
professor. Malinda intended to continue to have a professional life after retirement,
so she developed a website that she hoped would help her to reinvent herself at this
stage of life, using the skills she had developed as a teacher, group leader, and as
a psychologist. Malinda also continued to teach a popular elective that she had
designed several years prior to retirement. Coinciding with her retirement, a local
chapter of a national organization to help women in transition opened and Malinda
planned to volunteer there. Knowing the importance of leisure time activities during
this third quarter of life, Malinda joined a local singing group. Singing had been a
passion for her throughout her childhood, adolescence, and some of her adulthood, and
added to her enjoyment. Malinda and her husband enjoyed travel but were seldom
able to do so for long due to her academic calendar. Once Malinda retired, she and
her husband had extended travel each winter to exotic countries with warm winter
climates. Malinda, having carefully planned for the perfect reinvention experience,
believed she would move into this next phase in a fairly linear, progressive fashion.
The first few years of Malinda’s reinvention phase were fairly smooth. A col-
league approached Malinda about doing some work at another university and she
taught for them for 2 years with lots of energy expended, a nice salary received, but
lots of stress and an end to the extended travel she had enjoyed. The neatly created
postretirement life began to crack and Malinda became depressed, wondering what
would help her navigate this next phase, which was beginning to look more like “fits
and starts” than a deepening involvement in a passionate endeavor. Malinda and
her husband moved to a smaller condo/home in the nearby city to enable access to
cultural activities (theatre, concerts, museums, etc.) that they had always enjoyed.
The move was much more demanding than Malinda had anticipated, and being in
the city presented new challenges (parking issues, small spaces, shopping issues, and
a feeling of isolation). Malinda will forge ahead as she continues to unpack and create
a new community of friends and acquaintances. Malinda is in transition and a new
phase of reinvention—she had thought that was all behind her.
Objectives
After reading this chapter the reader will be able to:
■ Understand the importance of redefining the self by choosing work that
“matters” and rebalancing work, family, and time for pleasure.
■ Identify the anxiety and uncertainty that come with the losses/changes that
adults experience during this phase.
