It’s not a new idea. For more than a decade people have shunned using the word “retire.”* It creates a visceral gut-punch response from active, and engaged folks who find themselves at that point in their lives where they’re leaving full-time careers. We know that we’ve technically retired from our jobs, but don’t call us retired!
It’s remarkable to see the extent to which folks will avoid using the R-word. Recently, media personality Marilyn Denis announced that she was leaving her career at the radio station Chum FM in Toronto, a job she’s held for 40 years. The spin is that she’s “stepping away,” “leaving,” “signing off,” and “moving on,” but we all know she’s retiring. The funny thing is that the R-word was never mentioned in any of the press, or by Marilyn herself.** That got me thinking. What happens to this life event when we refuse to name it?
The Importance Of Retirement Rituals
Like all big life events, we have developed rituals to mark it and to help us process this new stage. To refuse to acknowledge that you’re going through a retirement, doesn’t mean that you don’t have these feelings. You’re just denying yourself the supporting ritual that comes with it.
One of the most important features of rituals is that they do not only mark time; they create time. By defining beginnings and ends to developmental or social phases, rituals structure our social worlds and how we understand time, relationships, and change.***
Retiring is an action that comes with a celebration of your accomplishments, recognition from your peers, and for many, the freedom of release. It also comes with grief and loss: saying goodbye to colleagues, to distinct identity, to a defined routine, and to a specific purpose. It’s complicated. It can take a long time to find your footing afterwards. Retiring is a significant life event, and to “quiet retire,” or simply step away without naming it, denies you the emotional and social support that naming it, and acknowledging it, provides.
Reclaiming Retiring
To retire does mean to step back, and that is certainly what we do when we leave our careers, but we’re not stepping back from life. In many ways, we’re leaping into new and exciting adventures from which our careers were holding us back. It’s a time of self-discovery that many of us haven’t experienced since our early twenties. Following the leaving of retirement is the excitement of arriving. And, that arrival is not the identity of “retired.” It’s so much more!
*https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2016/03/11/the-reason-i-hate-the-word-retirement/
Retired, And Now What? 