A few years before my first “retirement”, my husband and I attended a cocktail party where I became keenly aware of how attached everyone I met that night was to their work identity. On the way home, I remember smugly commenting how sad it was that so many people would be lost without the identity provided by what they did for a living. So imagine how stunned I was, those few years later, to find myself completely and totally lost when I left my career as TV and special events producer. I found I no longer knew who I left my title behind.My friend Nancy had “retired” to the country at the age of 45 when her husband - twenty years her senior - retired from his career. She had what - at the time - seemed like terrific advice. “Just tell anyone who asks that you’re temporarily retired,” she said with a twinkle. “First, they’ll be terribly jealous, and then, of course, they’ll ask what you used to do. Voila, you have your identity back!”Now that I’m older (and hopefully wiser) and have survived my first retirement identity crisis, I now know that clinging to the past is not […]

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