‘Are you fully retired then?” The question, at a recent gathering of neighbors, came from a former colleague at the institution where I resigned a year ago from my decades-long career. I gave my chipper, by now well-rehearsed answer: “No, no, I actually have two part-time jobs, and as I like to tell people: 1+1=3!”

The upbeat response conceals a reality that I had not anticipated when I left full-time employment in fall 2022, three months after turning 65. Although it has been gratifying and intellectually stimulating to take on two jobs that allow me to remain visible and professionally active — in the game — in fact, there’s no such thing as a part-time career. As managing editor of a community blog and as executive director of a small, struggling nonprofit, I often feel as busy as I was before for a fraction of the pay and benefits.

Neither of these is a job where you hang up your apron and forget about work till your next shift. The demands, the brainstorming, the ebb and flow of creative energy are always with me, as are the texts and emails.

I addressed the dilemma of trying to sandwich professional roles into part-time gigs in a blog post back in March, when I was midway through my so-called glidepath year. Since then, the issues have only magnified: Who restores the printer connection when there’s no IT department to call? Who pays for professional development? Why must I rationalize being reimbursed for envelopes, stamps and other office supplies with a new board member of the nonprofit?

Now that a full year has passed, I am evaluating again what retirement really means and why I have resisted the concept so strongly.

For me, this first year of part-time professional work has proved to be more complex and confusing than the binary choice that society offers of work or retirement, with no options in between. I have yet to find a road map for the life I have been crafting, and so — like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road — I am looking for mentors to point the way:

• When might I be ready to cease defining myself as a careerist?
• How accepting am I, really, of growing old?
• What other, nonpaid activities do I want to pursue?
• Can I concede the disappointments of what I never did accomplish in my career?

And the scariest question, impossible to answer: Will my savings and investments outlive me?

“What gradually increases during our late teens and begins to decline after age 60? Our self-esteem . . .  when we no longer have the status associated with our careers.”

—     Bev Bachel, Retirement Wisdom blog

Part-time professional positions have been a convenient, and cost-effective, way for me to delay examining the inevitable — that my career, and the influence that went with it, are on the wane; that I am aging out of the workforce; and that it’s time to start looking for other ways I can contribute and find meaning.

Meanwhile, increasingly, I just feel outdated, one of those benchwarmers who yearns for how things used to be. When I hear a Gallup social scientist assert that “requiring people to work in the office can lead to lower levels of engagement, higher burnout and a lot of resentment,” I have to wonder whether my way of working is passé.

I miss going to an office, which on the face of it has nothing to do with part-time work, except my two gigs station me at home. I miss dressing in something other than jeans and yoga pants. I miss walking to work and wrapping my head around my day, schmoozing with colleagues, using the walk back home to decompress.

For the last eight years of my full-time career, I had the great good fortune to work walking distance from my house, which made commuting a pleasure, a value added to my mental health. I understand if people who adapted to the Zoom life during COVID or endured congested commutes now resent that employers are demanding face time — but as an older worker, I miss the sociability of the office. I liked the stimulation of younger colleagues and new ideas.

Consider:

• It took months for me to lose interest in Twitter (OK, X), despite watching a parade of people I respect abandon the platform as it grew more biased and businesslike. I tried Mastodon, but it literally felt too dark and clubbish — and I told myself I didn’t need another social media mouth to feed (in addition to the three email accounts for my two part-time jobs). I finally listened when a young man offered to invite me to Bluesky, which the new platform requires. I poked around and developed a profile, describing myself as “learning as I go.” But the entire process would have been less fraught if I worked in an office with younger colleagues, rather than in a spare bedroom with a dog at my feet.
• When our young podcast editor suggested recently that we use more video at Streets.mn, I tried to sound enthusiastic but inside I was churning. By today’s standards, do I overvalue the written word? And when might the Millennials who employ me decide that the skills and perspective of a 66-year-old Baby Boomer are no longer relevant to what they need?

“One of the privileges of age is the right to live your life the way you want to, and to truthfully state your preferences.”

—     “Ask Amy” column, by Amy Dickinson, Star Tribune, September 21, 2023

Therein lies the trap of part-time professional work, the gigs that require decision-making and creative solutions, the jobs that spin your brain and sap your strength even after the day is done:

• I’m a contract worker who bills by the hour, with monthly billing sheets tied to specific outcomes. No one has yet told me that “think time” is among them, the way it used to be when I was employed full time.
• So, when no one is compensating you to advance your knowledge — to attend noontime seminars or weeklong conferences, to read up on current trends — do you do it on your own time at the expense of volunteerism, relationships, exercise and other self-care?

If I were younger, the answer would be an unequivocal, energetic “yes.” More of my career would be in front of me. But with retirement drawing closer — and the privilege of being able to afford to do it — I am called to examine whether professional work is worth it anymore.

One secret to happiness at this ill-defined stage of post–full-time career — my so-called glide path — is to stay as current as you can without denying your age and the validity of your experience. But for me it’s also recognizing what the career has cost, especially as a woman who broke new ground, in loss of family time, in stress, in misplaced self-importance.

As the curtain rises on my final act, I am pondering who I am becoming, and whether hanging up that apron at the end of a shift might soon be more rewarding than a fancy title on LinkedIn.