Category Archives: Retirement

Travel as a Practice for Retirement

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A version of this story appeared on June 10, 2025, in Next Avenue, a national publication for older adults published online by Twin Cities PBS.

When I left full-time work in September 2022, two months after turning 65, people naturally asked me how I liked retirement. Once I’d barked out my disdain for the R-word — chin lifted, spine stiffening — they learned not to inquire again.

In fact, the anxiety masked as rigidity was less about them than me: Retirement is a daunting prospect for us Baby Boomers who link our identity and sense of self with work.

I still don’t call myself “retired,” even though I work only a quarter-time job and a handful of contract gigs. But that’s about to change. I’ve given notice at my job, and my first grandchild is on the way, along with some shared responsibility for infant care.

Husband, David Studer, and our older son, Sam Studer, who is at London Film School

Since my husband and I had planned an overseas excursion this past April to visit our older son, who is studying at London Film School, I decided to approach the trip — only my second time in Europe — as practice for the less structured, more selfless life that is awaiting me.

Here’s what I learned.

Lesson 1: Lose Track of Time

We go-getter careerists live and breathe by our agendas. This holds true for me even 32 months after leaving full-time work. My quarter-time job, my freelance assignments, even fitness classes and coffee dates with friends: All fill my calendar at least a month or two out from where I stand today.

The decision to avoid sticking to a rigid schedule in London, aside from ticketed events and planned outings with our son, was an exercise in letting go — both a relief and a discipline all its own. As we planned the trip, I insisted on only one “anchor activity” a day, forcing a spontaneity I rarely allow myself to experience.

My favorite times were early mornings, while my husband was still asleep. With no deadlines to hit or dogs to be walked, I wrote in my journal. Sent postcards back home to friends. Read the library book I had downloaded on my iPad.

Diana and sons
Amy Winehouse

I refused to check work emails, relying on the out-of-office message that told people I was away, and tried to sit with the discomfort of being unproductive. The clock dictates my day, and it took effort to silence the pragmatic voice that drives me, even on weekends: “It’s 10 a.m., and you’ve accomplished nothing.”

So what? No one was monitoring my output or keeping score on how deeply I dug into London’s vast cultural scene. Free to let the days and evenings take their course, I felt how nourishing a less hectic life can be. No coincidence, I slept longer and more deeply in a stranger’s British flat than I ever do at home in my own bed.

Lesson 2: Get Out in the World

As luxurious as it was to hang out some mornings, I also had days when I left my night-owl husband sleeping at the Airbnb and struck out on my own. March and April are London’s least rainy months, and a stretch of sunny weather made it a joy to start the day walking the streets or seeing the view atop an iconic, red double-decker bus.

Pro-tip: Google Maps and the Transit app were my best sources of navigation, but I also felt more comfortable being out alone in the daytime once I’d been in town long enough to learn my way around.

One of my fears about full-on retirement is losing regular contact with younger colleagues and allowing my world to shrink. It’s become tempting as I age to stay home with a good book and a homecooked meal, or to settle in with my pets and watch Netflix or women’s basketball and tell myself that is enough. Or that it’s safer.

Tower Bridge
Tate Britain museum

So, following the lead of a widowed friend who goes alone to movies and concerts and routinely travels on his own, I spent the better part of one morning at the Tate Britain — one bus ride away — browsing the museum store, strolling through galleries and relaxing outside the cafeteria with my book. Yes, I was alone, but I was also among people.

Given my career in journalism and communications, I can easily strike up conversations with strangers, even in a city with thick English accents. The trip showed me how to carry my professional skills into retirement, when I no longer can wrap myself in the security blanket of a title and role, with a ready answer to the question: What do you do?

Lesson 3: Dress to Please Yourself

During my decades as a business reporter and later a marketing-and-communications director, I dressed up every day. Looked and acted the part of a career woman. I enjoyed shopping and the creativity of assembling a wardrobe — mixing and matching outfits, coordinating earrings, scarves and shoes — but toward the end of my career, especially after COVID, “dressing for success” felt like donning a costume. It wasn’t me!

In London, I had no one to dress for but myself. My comfort, the weather and how far I would likely walk that day dictated what I wore. That meant:

  • Comfortable shoes with heel support and a roomy toe box for the 17,062 steps I averaged during my nine days abroad.
  • Little to no eye makeup, even for “Carmen” at the Royal Opera House, because it could smudge in the wind and cold.
  • Refreshing my short razor haircut the day before we left, so I could fluff it with my fingers after wearing a hat for warmth or sun protection.
  • Ditching the more fashionable purse for a sturdy backpack, both to free my arms while walking and to discourage bag snatchers.
London subway
U.S. Embassy

Now that I operate from a home office, I rarely dress up anymore. “Athletic casual” is how my younger son defines my style. Retirement allows that freedom — to quit comparing myself with younger women and dress for the age and body type I am today. And for movement, the best antidote to low energy and stiff joints.

Lesson 4: Keep Learning

My gradual glidepath to retirement these past two and a half years has given me time to adjust, both financially and emotionally. Of course, I worry: Will we have enough money? Who will I be without work? Will volunteering and family life fulfill the sense of purpose that a career has given me for decades?

A trip to London is not exactly high adventure for a white American with English roots. Still, I find it fitting that a foreign country became my place to try out a different way to live. Retirement is a bold undertaking, a journey toward a different land. My passport — my practice in the coming months — will be to remember and refresh these lessons learned.

Ready or not: Here comes retirement!

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It happened gradually, and it happened overnight. Over the course of two years — and then seemingly without warning — I have become ready, finally, to embrace retirement. Not to cease being physically active (ever!) or contributing as a volunteer. Not even to give up my quarter-time gig as an editor and nurturer of younger writers.

Instead, after more than 40 years of seeking identity and purpose and meaning through work, I have stopped defining myself as a careerist. As “what I do.” The question to answer now is: Who am I?

“Seasons change, people grow together and apart, life moves on. You will be OK, embrace it.”

— “Words From a Wanderer,” by Alexandra Elle

When I left full-time work in September 2022, at age 65, I would visibly stiffen whenever people asked me about “retirement.” Indeed, I defiantly declared in a blog post that my two part-time jobs qualified me as working — still in the game! —  especially since the positions utilized my skills and had professional sounding titles, which felt important to me then. I also defined retirement, in part, as the decision to draw Social Security, and I aimed to avoid that until I hit my full retirement age of 66 years and 6 months.

Fast-forward to today:

  • I left one of my two part-time gigs in early June, the one that paid better but was more chaotic and uncertain.
  • I opted to begin drawing Social Security when I turned 67, on July 4, and will receive my first check in August.
  • I have become more particular about the freelance work I will accept, turning down a potential offer that would have paid well for at least a year but had aspects that run counter to my values.

Back in February, I woke up earlier than usual on the morning I was set to give notice at my second job. As I sipped my café au lait before sunrise, I listened to a podcast about emotional intelligence in retirement. The speakers urged listeners to name their feelings and even state them aloud, like a 6-year-old: I feel sad. No, not that. I found a letter from the Social Security Administration in a neglected pile of mail, and I recognized a different feeling: I feel scared.

As well as humbled, helpless, hopeful. What comes next?

Where do aging people find community?

Twice last week, on consecutive days, I had rich conversations with women about loneliness and the meaning of friendship, about where we seek and find community now that our networks are shrinking, and our family responsibilities — whether raising children or caring for aging parents — are largely done.

One talk was with my widowed sister, who hasn’t worked in years (the workplace being a hub of socializing and people contact) and who recently moved from her familiar neighborhood. She plays Mahjong with her former neighbors and recently joined a cards group. That squares with advice in a New York Times article back in May, which cited research showing that adults on either end of the age spectrum may be vulnerable to loneliness — and can offset it by volunteering and joining groups.

My second discussion was with a longtime friend who is planning to retire early next year. I told her about the “Women in Retirement” group I had visited recently after months of finding excuses not to go. “The women all looked so old when I walked in,” I said, and then we laughed, knowing full well that the image I carry of myself in my head is not the one that looks back at me in photographs.

Starting from young adulthood, self-reported loneliness tends to decline as people approach midlife only to rise again after the age of 60.

— “The Loneliness Curve,” New York Times, May 21, 2024

Both conversations revolved around the gap between our own perceptions of our energy and vitality — the contributions we still hope to make in the world — and the diminishing way that people perceive us, if they think of us at all. My sister’s young adult grandkids see her as “an old lady,” she says, and rarely are in touch. My friend and I, who met 40 years ago in a newsroom, discussed the coming loss of a collegial community at work, even in a part-time job like mine.

Friendship was the topic at the “Women in Retirement” group last week, with a focus on the axiom that we have friends for a reason, friends for a season and friends for life (credit a poem by Brian A. “Drew” Chalker). My small coterie of friends for life — the handful of people who know me as myself, not within a role or professional position — are friends I made back in my 20s and 30s.

Am I still capable of forging and investing in such deep and trusting friendships, or has it become easier to blanket myself in the comfort of people I’ve known for years? Time will tell; and time, I now recognize, in one of aging’s many insights, is an ever-diminishing commodity.

How do we reconcile our shifting energies?

During the four decades when I worked full time, full-bore — setting the “gold standard” for work ethic, one of my managers used to say — I had a standard answer when people asked where I was going on vacation: “Off the clock.” I’ve lived by a calendar and to-do lists for so long that I don’t know how else to operate. The part-time job, the one or two freelance gigs I always have going, the uptick in volunteering: All add up to days that feel nearly as full as the 50-hours-a-week career.

But guess what? It’s catching up to me. At 67, I no longer can summon the energy of a 45-year-old. So: Why do I still take so much pride in staying busy? I hear my late mother posing a question that annoyed me at the time: “You’re always running, Amy. What are you running from, I wonder.” Some part is habit. Some is trying to remain relevant (as though a person my age can do that in our ageist society). Some is denial. An even bigger part is fear.

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Professor and historian Heather Cox Richardson recently observed that “democracy is a process, and it’s never finished.” I feel the same way about retirement. To concede that my work life — and productivity, as I’ve defined it — is behind me, to accept that family, friends and volunteering are what can bring me peace and purpose, is to take a giant leap into the unknown.

“There is always something truly restorative, really, finally comforting, in learning what is true. In coming to the end of an illusion, a false hope,” wrote Sue Miller in her 1995 novel “The Distinguished Guest,” which I just finished. If I sit still long enough, I can name the illusion, even as I wince at its futility and hubris — the conceit that I could outrun and outwit age.

How Women’s Work-Life Choices Are Evolving

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The first thing I noticed was the number of women casually wearing blue jeans as they networked, introduced themselves and sipped their morning coffee, as though clothes did not define their role or status.

I had debated what to wear for my first professional women’s conference in over 25 years. Would skirts and blazers still be required? Given that I was taking mass transit to the event, could I get away with athletic shoes? Finally, on a chilly, gray Friday with intermittent showers, I opted for slacks and shoes I could walk in — practical and comfortable. Turns out, I was overdressed!

Between the ages of 36 to 43, I was a full-time newspaper columnist writing about women and work, with a focus on how a generation of middle-class women were navigating the personal and the professional in ways their homemaker mothers never had to do. “On Balance: Issues That Affect Work and Home” the column was called. So, when I heard about the annual women’s conference put on by RSP (Ready. Set. Pivot.) — a Twin Cities-based organization that “guides bold, unapologetic women to their next best thing” — I saw it as a chance to investigate how issues for career women have changed over the past 30 years.

Three conclusions or trends emerged that demonstrate the realities I have recognized in my 60s:

  • Progress can be temperamental, and transitory, but movements for social change do push us forward.
  • Age shifts our priorities, giving us space to quit dwelling on the inevitable regrets and instead channel them into more authentic ways to lead our lives today.

“Always concentrate on how far you have come, rather than how far you have left to go.”

Heidi Johnson

Trend #1: Finally! Flexibility Is Firm

Back when I was writing the column on women and work (a first for a local newspaper in the 1990s), once- or twice-a-week telecommuting was an almost revolutionary option provided by employers wanting to be seen as work-life friendly and to retain women struggling vainly to “have it all.” I was commuting a long way to the newsroom, with my husband as an at-home parent to our two sons. When a top-tier liberal arts college a mile from home offered me a job in communications, I used it to negotiate a partial work-from-home arrangement.

“Flexibility doesn’t mean working from home on Tuesdays,” a source told me at the time. “True flexibility looks different ways on different days.” And true flexibility, back then, was rare.

Years later, flexibility was among the trends that panelists cited at the RSP conference, organized by former Blue Cross Blue Shield marketing executive Wendy Wiesman, 50, who relishes the “insane freedom” that she gained when she left a prestigious job at a reputable company five years ago.

“Women are more ambitious than ever, and workplace flexibility is fueling them,” says the Women in the Workplace 2023 report by McKinsey & Company, produced annually in partnership with LeanIn.org.

Six key questions kicked off the RSP conference in October.

Rather than being the sole exception, as I was, the women I met at the conference treated flexibility as a given rather than a favor that could be taken away. They have the confidence, or perhaps the strength in numbers, to determine how and where they want to work. COVID and a tight labor market have fueled that trend.

I talked with two women in their 40s who are running their own businesses. Diane, a human resources specialist who was often told she “wasn’t typical,” has three children and is the primary breadwinner because her husband is a teacher. Jennifer, who is married with two daughters, lost 100 pounds a decade ago and joined Toastmasters to help her present herself publicly. Now, having tired of working in financial services, she coaches professionals in public speaking.

Wiesman, founder and CEO of Ready. Set. Pivot., says those are the kinds of courageous women her company attracts, who want to design the next stage of their career and leave a secure position if it’s not working. “The DNA is of a woman who is never quite satisfied,” she says. Or, as her website puts it: “The best talent is restless.”

“What does success mean to me now? From the perspective of today, what is most important to me?”

Randi Levin, transitional life strategist

Trend #2: Self-Care Is Not Selfish

As a young business reporter, I interviewed women who wore blue suits to work. Who pulled back their long hair. Who displayed no photos of their children. It’s almost laughable now, how earnestly we tried to blend in with the corporate male establishment (and, of course, it’s the rap against the women’s movement of the 1970s, that we white women of means were merely striving to fit in rather than working to change the system for Black and brown women, too).

Often that meant working harder for less pay and recognition, on the blind faith that someday, it would pay off.

Nowadays, Black women in particular are vocal about the importance — the essentialness — of self-care amid the myriad stressors in their lives. The inaugural “Rest Up Awards,” announced by the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota in September, are granting $10,000 each to 40 nonprofit leaders throughout the state whose organizations are advancing gender and racial justice. All recipients are women of color, according to coverage in the Star Tribune.

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

“That whole perfectionism thing is out the door,” said the RSP conference’s keynote speaker, Natasha Bowman, a Black attorney, bestselling author and recognized expert on workplace mental health. “Women experience mental health challenges at twice the rate of men, at least. But we women don’t put ourselves on our to-do lists.”

In helping ambitious, hardworking women to design their next phase of life, Wiesman urges them to broaden their focus — and encompass their families, relationships, volunteerism and other interests in a vision of how they want to live. “I first need them not to work 80 hours a week on their day job,” she explains. “It takes a long time to shift out of that. But you have to begin to not over-achieve in that arena. Otherwise, you make no space for the pursuit.”

And you end up in your 60s, as I have, trying to explain your workaholic choices to now-grown children who still resent that you were gone so much while they were growing up.

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

Maya Angelou

Trend #3: We Get to Be Who We Really Are

In addition to all the jeans and easy laughter at the women’s conference, I noticed that I had never heard “shit” and “fuck” spoken so often or openly at a professional gathering. My age-related aversion to swearing aside, I took it as a brazen symbol of Generation X women’s comfort with themselves. They’re not looking to anyone else to define what is acceptable. “I’m challenging the universe to think differently about talented women,” said Wiesman during her introductory remarks at the event.

Leadership coach Susan Davis-Ali, Ph.D., author of the book How to Become Successful Without Becoming a Man, spoke during a panel discussion about the “great corporate job” she had 15 years ago before leaving to launch her own work and pursue her own path. “Transformation means to change,” she says, including “behavior and attitudes.”

“Getting personal will create risk,” another panelist said. The mostly middle-aged, mostly white women in attendance — exactly the audience for my long-ago business column — heard about negotiating for what they’re worth (“men ask for significantly more money”), about defining what they are offering the market (“generalists aren’t getting noticed; find your sweet spot”) and about speaking with more authority (less “I think” or “I feel”; “own your expertise”).

Men’s restrooms were repurposed at the RSP conference.

When a panelist asked how many of us were old enough to have been expected to “be in the office from 9 to 5 with pantyhose on,” I was among the few women who raised my hand. Later, during a breakout session, I spoke up on behalf of my Boomer generation: the ones who blazed a trail but failed to notice that some women weren’t on the path, who overinvested in work as our sole means of self-worth and self-expression.

Wiesman’s generation obviously has learned from our mistakes. “Since the pandemic, women are centering more on their lives and themselves,” she told me. “They’re focusing on themselves first and not the system.”

As a woman of retirement age who still enjoys work, I’d say it’s time to start emulating the women coming up behind us, the ones who declare (as Wiesman’s RSP website says): “This is what I want, this is what I need, this is what I’m good at, this is what I love.” And then get out there and show the world that aging women still have a hell of a lot to offer.