Great news! I’m a Queen Bee. Not such great news: it’s only ten o’clock in the morning.
My perfect score in the New York Times Spelling Bee, in other words, was made possible by the fact that I have no work to do right now and could start playing the online anagram game at breakfast.
The idleness is temporary and expected. Winter and spring are the busiest seasons for my copyediting work, and the pressure usually eases in June. After pushing for six months, I’m relieved when I finish and have some free time over the summer. So why, then, have I been in a funk – restless and brooding – since I wrapped up the last job?
I’m not seriously down, but my mildly grumpy mood does raise questions. I’ll turn 70 later this year. If not working for just a few weeks has these doleful effects, I wonder what will happen when – at some still-undetermined date – I stop working for good.
Retirement inequalities
There are two sides to this question: the financial and the psychological. I won’t spend much time on the former here. The question of how to ensure financial security in old age is a concern for almost everyone, not least for self-employed workers, who lack pensions and 401(k)s. That said, personal circumstances vary widely. A self-employed professional who owns a home and has built up individual retirement accounts has very different prospects from a house cleaner with little in the way of assets or savings. Retirement, like so much else, is shaped by the economic inequality that pervades our society.
Indeed, many people, whether self-employed or working for an employer, can’t afford to retire. They keep working as long as they can, until declining health or some other circumstance requires them to stop. For women especially, caregiving for children or for an elderly, sick, or disabled family member may force an exit from the paid workforce.
I’ll be able to retire and choose when to do it, so it’s the nonmonetary aspects I want to explore here. I get satisfaction out of editing and value the relationships with my clients, some of whom have become friends. But after 30 years of doing basically the same thing every day, I’m tired – burned out, even. Why am I reluctant to stop? When I stop, what will I do instead?
Work and identity
There’s a large literature about the emotional impacts of retirement. Feeling isolated, at loose ends, even depressed for a time appears common. This may be especially true for people who liked their jobs and whose identities are closely tied to the work they did. That description fits plenty of people I know. Subconsciously, we wonder: “My work is who I am. Who will I be if I stop working?”
It’s useful to recognize that this kind of thinking is not universal. Some have suggested that it’s peculiarly American. I’m not sure about that, but I do think it’s to some extent class-based and maybe place-based. My sense is that highly educated urban professionals – there are legions in DC, where I live – are particularly likely to intertwine their self-concepts with their careers. That’s a stereotype, but maybe one with a grain of truth? It doesn’t fully apply to me: I take pride in the work I do to help writers improve their writing, but the creative impetus is not mine, and the work is not published under my name. So copyediting is part of my identity, but only to a point. Other types of work and writing that I do without pay, subsidized by my editing, matter more.
Work and purpose
A friend retired several years ago after a career as an architectural historian. She told me, “Before I retired, everyone said, ‘You’ll love it!’ But I find there are ups and downs, good days and bad days. Some days I feel purposeless.”
I appreciated her honesty, because this goes to the center of my concerns. While I may not always love copyediting, working my way through a manuscript gives structure to my days. The pressure to finish a job pushes me forward, forcing me to concentrate. I don’t have time to ponder existential questions. When the pressure is lifted, even temporarily, it leaves a void that can be filled with doubts.
But it also creates an opportunity to do things I never had time for. Many of my retired friends are extremely active. Several teach English as a second language to immigrants, as I did for more than a decade, stopping only when the pandemic forced the classes onto Zoom. Others tutor children in our neighborhood elementary school or teach writing in a prison.
Many of my friends are involved with NOPE, an all-volunteer group that works in battleground states to swing elections and support voting rights. Retired women are the backbone of NOPE. They’re canvassing for candidates, fundraising for grassroots organizations, and registering new citizens to vote, among other activities. I’ve been part of NOPE since 2018 and have enjoyed knocking on doors with canvassing teams. I also edit some of NOPE’s publications, pro bono of course. But with more time available, I could do more. Virginia, which has consequential elections this November, will be a good place to start. I’ve signed up for the Virginia Women’s Summit, a networking event in late July that will build energy for electoral activism this fall.
Time to ask questions
When I started this blog in 2021, I defined the third age as
the stage of life that begins in late middle age and continues as long as health and energy allow. For many women – not all, to be sure – it’s a period when childrearing duties and paid employment may be reduced or even ending. If we’re lucky, it can be a time for reflection and for finding new purpose. It’s a time when we ask: What’s really important?
While I’m starting to wind down my paying work, I haven’t yet ramped up my volunteering or even seriously engaged the question of what’s most important to me. That may be why I’ve occasionally felt adrift. I’m not ready to stop editing yet; I need to keep earning for another year or so. But thinking about the possibilities that retirement would open up and hearing about how friends navigated this transition are helping me imagine a path forward.
You're raising all the tough questions. Looking forward to seeing how you answer them.
I read this when you first wrote it and loved it. I know you will find the perfect balance. I will let you know how my reentry into the workforce from semi retired goes as soon as I know. Let´s just say it has been challenging to do a job when I can´t visit the site. All my control freak, perfectionist tendencies (about my work) bubble to the surface and hopefully my marriage and I survive.