A Tough Question Reveals an Identity Crisis
The question ‘who’s still working?’ gave this new retiree pause
My Dad bowled. I played softball. These were the only men's groups I ever knew. So, I had no idea what to expect when my new friend Oliver invited me to a restaurant with three other fellows I had never met. Five guys at dinner? It seemed so…next level. The only thing I knew for sure was that I could leave my bat and ball at home.
Oliver is the kind of guy who usually has an agenda. It might be serious, or not. He could be organizing a fundraiser for the local string quartet — or simply looking for TV shows to stream. I hoped this fledgling men's group concerned neither.
The music of Brahms would be a strange new frontier for me, and since Game of Thrones I haven't binged anything on TV save for reruns of American Ninja Warrior. I'm an unrepentant sucker for the mega warped wall. But I would never share that.
T-shirts were the chief fashion statement at the table; small talk came slowly.
Stepping into the restaurant, I quickly noticed that two of the men in the group were a bit older. I'm not trying to age up, I thought. That is happening quite naturally and much too fast already. But it's not like they were talking about cataracts and cholesterol.
I trusted Oliver. A spirited Brit, he is a first-class networker and, best I can tell, had parlayed that skill (and no doubt others) into a massively successful marketing career. If there were a dud at the table, it most likely would be me.
When this dinner took place, in the summer of 2021, we were emerging — briefly, it turned out — from the COVID-19 lockdown. So, our social skills had rusted. T-shirts were the chief fashion statement at the table; small talk came slowly. I waited for Oliver to take charge. This was his gig, after all, and he loves holding court.
But Oliver was fully occupied simply reveling in his creation: the first in-person interaction involving unacquainted humans in more than a year. His obvious contentment had me feeling like I was part of some pre-post-pandemic social experiment. What had all those months in sweatpants done to us?
Finally, Steve, who identified himself as an economist, seized control and bore in as an economist would.
"Why don't we start this way," he said, surveilling the table. "Who is still working?"
'Who is Still Working?'
Steve looked squarely at me, as if I was the most puzzling. I had put on a spiffy collared shirt, which stood out in this sea of crew-neck cotton. Maybe that drew his attention, which was unfortunate for me because this conversation starter left me momentarily wordless.
Oh God, I thought. How do I answer?
I had left my long career as a print journalist. But I still do project work. I am writing a memoir, which I hope to sell. I write essays like this one, which will go into a book I hope people will buy. I never had a going-away party. I'm not collecting Social Security and haven't triggered my pension. I certainly feel like I am still working.
Then again, I'm under no deadline pressure. I write what I want when I want. That sounds a lot like not working — or the schedule of someone like author David Sedaris who can sell anything he puts on a page. I'm not David Sedaris, no matter how hard I try.
I had wrestled with my evolving status many times and spoke freely of it with my wife. But until this group gathered to come out of COVID isolation, I had yet to confront my life change in such a stark and public way. I didn't have to. Everyone was at home.
Am I still working? The question froze me like the first time I opened an invite to join AARP. It was more paralyzing than being notified I could begin taking penalty-free 401(k) withdrawals and, later, begin collecting Social Security and enroll in Medicare.
Yet, somehow, those and other barefaced markers of age had fallen before me gracefully — like the time I mentioned to a young colleague that I was a long-time fan of Hall and Oates and he responded, "Hmm, I haven't eaten cereal since I was a kid."
I may be in the career-tweener world of my middle 60s. But I feel good. I feel engaged. Also, I still have an amazing head of hair. Yet, I can't guarantee I'll go sanguinely into mandatory pension distributions a few years from now. The shift from accumulating savings to finally having enough, and spending it, may sound like a party. But it's one where the kids won't know the music.
Wondering If I Was in Denial
At the dinner table, my inner dialogue went blessedly undetected as a round of martinis arrived providing welcome cover. In the hubbub of sorting out who had ordered Hendricks with a twist and Bombay shaken with olives, Steve moved on.
"I'm still going full-time," Steve offered.
Others tip-toed into the conversation. Mark was winding down his practice as a securities lawyer. William was doing the same with his medical practice. I took that to mean they were on my schedule. Oliver was serving on various boards and had just sold his piece of a small business.
They all seemed so comfortable with this life stage. Why did I find it unsettling? Was it that I still identified with my full-time, salaried, productive working self? I've done enough research around this subject to understand that for most people — men and women — it may take years to adjust psychologically when they leave their career.
But I'm not most people. I have written two books on the subject. Leaving my career wasn't supposed to trigger relevancy issues — like the quizzical gaze on a millennial cashier's face at Office Depot the day I asked, "Where can I find the typing paper?"
Was I in denial? Here's a clue: This sentence contains my first utterance of the word retirement, even though I've been dancing around the subject for 16 paragraphs.
Continuing the Conversation
We were now a few purposeful swallows into our martinis, which sanded off a layer of interpersonal rust. Oliver declared that dinner was on him. This further lightened the mood and Mark wiped away any remaining vestiges of social amnesia with a story of his pre-teen grandchild asking what a group of men our age do on a night out.
"Go to a strip club?" the child had asked.
We shared a hearty, bonding laugh.
"Are those even a thing anymore?" William inquired.
"I wouldn't know where to find one," Mark said.
"Isn't there an app for that?" I offered.
Feeling chummy, we veered into current events — careful to avoid politics, lest we risk blowing up the evening. None of us were anti-vaxxers. Inoculation was the price of entry. But you never know where people stand on issues that divide our nation. Our social graces were recovering; no one went there.
The rest of the evening we found plenty to talk about — from the calf's liver on the menu to the soaring stock market and the economic conversation du jour: inflation.
The world saw me as retired. I might as well own it, I thought. I smiled and said, "Yes, I guess I am."
Steve the economist was certain price inflation would last longer than most believed and worried it might be difficult to contain. Fully aware of his credentials, I nonetheless begged to differ — as a journalist would.
"Inflation has been a bad bet for forty years," I said. "This is transitory. Lumber prices are already falling."
Never mind that the ensuing months provided abundant evidence Steve knew his business. At the time, mine was a reasonable challenge, one he did not address head on. Instead, he took the group full circle.
"What are you doing now, Dan?" he asked, noting that I hadn't answered the first question of the evening.
By now I had thought about my response and confidently ticked off a series of speculative writing projects that were occupying my time. I should have let it go at that. But I added that I was a volunteer on the board of our lake association, for which I also wrote a newsletter and maintained a website.
"So, you're retired," Steve said with enviable economy.
In that moment, I came to grips. It didn't matter that I was busy or fulfilled, or how I thought of myself. It didn't matter that I was enjoying filling pages with words more than at any time in my past and that I just might be doing the best writing of my life. The world saw me as retired. I might as well own it, I thought. I smiled and said, "Yes, I guess I am."
Only then was I able to fully engage in our last topic of the evening: The New York Times Spelling Bee, which challenges readers to find as many words as possible in a seven-letter jumble and had captured the attention of most of the table.
"I never stop playing until I get a pangram," Oliver said, referring to a word that uses all seven letters. "Once last week, I got every possible word."
"Finding the pangram is a must," I agreed with a nod. "And I never stop working those letters until I have leveled up to genius, even if it takes a couple hours."
Like tuning in to Ninja for the mega warped wall, spending an entire morning unraveling a seven-letter puzzle is something I would never share. Only I did. And the way forward, though far from clear, feels more promising.
