In my last essay, Transitioning to Retirement (Part I), I introduced you to my five step process for managing the abrupt change from work into retirement.  Those five steps are: Detox, Endless Vacation, What Day is it?, Catharsis and The New Normal.  After a brief description of each of those stages, I dove a bit deeper into Detox.  Today, we are going to tackle the next two steps:  Endless Vacation and What Day is it?  The first is probably the most enjoyable time you will ever have in your life.  The second will be one of the most disconcerting. 

As you may remember, the timing of my move into retirement was not exactly of my own choosing.  That sort of intensity change, from 110 miles per hour to about zero overnight, can leave you numb and at a bit of a loss for what to do when your eyes open in the morning.  I was lucky in that I saw my probable unemployment coming for several months and had some time to prepare (if not anticipate).  My Detox time really only lasted a couple of weeks and even that may be generous.  I was just done.  That last year was so exhausting and mentally debilitating, and I was close enough to my planned retirement year, that I just said “enough”.  I knew I wasn’t going back to full time work.

As luck would have it, I was “retired” in late June.  I still woke up with the early morning sun, but now my days stretched in front of me with glorious…..glorious……What is the word I’m looking for?  Not laziness, although there was plenty of that.  Not nothingness, because it wasn’t that either.  Leisure!  Glorious leisure!  Think about those times you had a long weekend, like Memorial Day or maybe July 4^th.  Maybe you tacked on a few extra days and stretched it into a week or so.  Maybe you went to the shore or the mountains.  Maybe you just stayed home.  But you looked in front of you and thought, “Wow.  I have X days to just live before I have to go back to work!”  Then that time just sped by and before you knew it, there was that pit in your stomach.  “I’d better check e-mail, just to know what’s waiting for me.”  You start thinking about what you know is coming up and then about what might be coming up and then you start thinking about some of the people you’ll have to deal with and….it’s over.

It’s fitting that I started drafting this essay while in Aruba for a week.  Those weeks in Aruba over the years (yes, some people actually LIKE their timeshares) were wonderful and tragic at the same time.  Lying in the sun, feeding lettuce to iguanas, reading for pleasure…all gave me a taste of what “it” could be like.  This time, though, the end of the trip brought no additional sadness beyond missing those iguanas.  OK, some frustration at the lines for immigration and the 45 minutes it took PHL to unload the luggage, but Monday just brought a return to spin class.  Painful as that was after a week off, it was still enjoyable!

So, what will you do during your Endless Vacation phase?  Depends on your personality and your “if I only had time” list.  For me, it was taking long walks on local trails, reading for pleasure, and taking naps.  (Although I quickly learned that I was not allowed to take naps in view of Trish when she was working from home.)  For others, it might be cleaning out the garage or tackling the yard or going to see friends you haven’t seen in ages.  The key to the Endless Vacation stage is that whatever you do, you are doing it for pleasure.  While most of us need a sense of purpose at some level, that does not apply to this wondrous phase.  You will (hopefully) just do whatever you want to do.  Allow yourself this time.  You’ve earned it, darn it.  And if you jump too quickly into something too demanding, guess what?  You’ll just end up back in Detox.  A note to those of you that do end up moving into a different yet demanding responsibility after you retire, such as caring for an aging parent or taking on a consulting role or going back for another degree.  You haven’t retired; you’ve simply moved on to another job.  Your Detox and Endless Vacation will come later, maybe never if you enjoy being that busy (or are required to be that busy).  I do recognize that what I’m describing will be seen by many as a luxury.  I hope you all get to enjoy it at some point.

When do you know when Endless Vacation has come to an end?  I don’t remember exactly when this happened (and that should be a clue), but it was warm enough for me to be wearing shorts and for us to be sitting outside.  I had met a good friend from my Air Products days, along with her husband, for lunch.  They had moved out of town when she retired and were coming back to the area for a visit.  That morning, knowing that I had a real activity on my calendar, I showered early and put on “going out” khaki shorts and a real shirt.  I was excited!  I met “Mary” and “Chuck” at a favorite nearby restaurant and we had a wonderful time catching up.  We talked about retiring and how our lives had changed.  We laughed about how things that we used to fit into lunch hours or after work on the way home, had become the entire focus of a day.  As we wound up our time together and rose to say goodbye, Chuck asked me what else I was planning on doing that day.  I hesitated a second.  Then said, “I met you two for lunch!  Isn’t that enough?” 

As I drove home, exhausted by having been out for several hours and actually interacting with people, I thought to myself, “Sherri, I think you need something a little more engaging in your life.”  Endless Vacation was ending.  I was entering the realm of What Day is it?  I had been waking up in the morning not knowing what day it was because I had no schedule.  At first it was liberating.  Then it became a little frightening.  When I started Endless Vacation, I had looked forward to just sitting in one of our many reading chairs and reading for hours, meandering through the pile of books I had bought over the years and still wanted to read.  But now, an hour or so of reading is enough. Endless Vacation meant I could look forward to taking long walks every day.  But now after that long walk there was a lot of not moving and much snacking.  At the start of Endless Vacation I was able to take naps whenever I wanted!  But now I was falling asleep after going grocery shopping.  I had gotten bored.

It was time to start thinking about how I wanted my daily life to evolve.  Instead of planning for the future, I’m finally living in the present.  So, what does that look like for me?  How much of a time commitment did I want to make to something?  To an organization?  To an activity?  What could I get lost in?  What would be the output of this “something” and what would I do with it?  I honestly hadn’t given much thought to my post-full-time-work life except that I wanted to travel.  And even that raised questions:  Where?  Why?  I’m a goal oriented, outcome driven person.  What did that mean in my “retirement”?  As I noodled on these questions I tried some ideas out in “thought experiments” and rejected one after another.  Then I got a phone call that led to my first Catharsis.  We’ll pick up on that next time!