"How Does it Feel to be Retired?"

My husband asked me that question recently. And my answer was something along the lines of, "Not very different from how it's felt for the past few months working."

That's because my days didn't dramatically change on retirement Day One, when many retirees instantly transition from full and demanding days on the job to luxuriously abundant-with-free-time days where they get up in the morning whenever they want to and indulge themselves in spontaneous activites all day. Over the past several months, prior to my last day at work, my work load had dwindled to almost nothing -- other than a weekly blog post and checking email every day. I've worked from home for more than ten years, so being where I love to be and having a varied and flexible schedule is nothing new. In fact, officially retiring was a tiny bit disappointing because I didn't get to experience that major shift in routine.

However, as the time passes I am feeling other subtle shifts -- and that's where the difference between working full time because I have to and defining my life more on my own terms is starting to sink in. Some of it's good. Some of it's not so good.

The not so good comes from the root of all evil -- money. No matter how much I prepared by working the figures, discussing our finances with my husband and reassuring myself we'll be fine, getting a grip on having less money -- significantly less money -- is an adjustment. I may have retired from one job, but that doesn't mean I've stepped out of the work world -- because I don't want to have significantly less money for long. Money is power. Money is freedom. Money is nice. It's what you exchange for the things you want -- whether that be home improvements, vacations or the ability to "hold your own" with your children and indulge them with gifts and opportunities. You don't necessarily realize how important these things are until you no longer have the ability or control to provide them.

Control. That's another tricky element that has waned with "retirement." For the first time in more than 20 years I do not have absolute control over my finances. I am dependent on someone else now. And with that dependency comes a loss of control. That hit home hard when I was trying to convert my life insurance over to my husband's flexible benefits -- and doing it from a distance because I was 500 miles away from home visiting family. He was having to do the "leg work" of making this change because I no longer had access to the electronic systems in the company where we both worked and which I retired from. The people he was working with didn't understand the process we needed to go through and kept giving him what I knew were wrong answers -- as I was in a special class of retirees, having taken a company-proposed early retirement. And because there are such strict rules and timing in all of this, I was feeling especially vulnerable in trying to manage this a couple of steps removed and hundreds of miles away -- though I eventually found the key to regaining at least some control was simply having all his personal information in my hands and feeding it to the benefits representatives (a good lesson for others in similar situations). The final blow was to learn I had no influence over beneficiary designations. Even though we're married and our finances are now combined, I don't own this life insurance. It's all his, and that means he gets all the money. There is no option to provide for my other heirs -- as I could with my own life insurance. I have never been in this position before.

At one point in this process I broke down sobbing over the phone to my husband, "I have nothing, I am nothing, I'm nobody and I can't do anything." I know I shocked (and probably scared) him with this outburst, but I really surprised myself too. It seemed I'd been holding in -- and maybe hiding from myself -- the crux of what it meant to make such a dramatic life change. I didn't truly mean I had no value as a person. What I meant was I'd lost my power, and I was now invisible in a system in which I had recently had a very strong presence. I got over it (and it helped to unlock the secret to working the system), but there's definitely a lesson in letting go when it comes to retiring.

Now for the upside...though my daily routine is not dramatically different from what it was before retirement, what I am noticing is a significant and very liberating absence of pressure -- the pressure to continually meet ongoing deadlines, the pressure of planning my work out weeks ahead, the pressure of being responsible to multiple constituents on an ongoing basis, the pressure to "grow and develop" in a job where it was often a challenge to overcome complacency, the pressure to perform well and with enthusiasm at tasks I really didn't enjoy. That absence of pressure feels great. Where I may have lost some financial freedom, I have greatly gained personal freedom -- to explore, go forth and be myself in the world, whatever I'm defining my self to be.

In my case, "retirement" is a bit of a misnomer. I haven't completely let go. Though I've retired from my job of 18 years, I haven't retired from the work world. What I'm hoping for is to find work on my own terms as a freelance writer -- because I love to write and I'm pretty fond of the money (and the power and freedom) part time freelance writing will bring. I can't afford to completely leave the work world yet, and that's OK.

What I AM enjoying is the opportunity to create work I want to do, and only work I want to do, rather than plunging right into work I have to do because I have to make a living. That's a huge change. And that's taken some getting used to too -- the art of simply giving myself permission to do this and making sure I don't grab at something I don't want. While I may not be luxuriating in a dramatic shift in my daily life, I am luxuriating in the gifts of defining my own work, being free to work when I want to and exploring a new world of connecting with people in a creative way rather than being at the mercy of a job description. This is the beauty and excitement of retirement -- whether you are working for money or working for the enjoyment of doing something you love to do. In retirement, these two things can (and should) be one and the same.

Lastly, though you might say I'm semi-retired, there is one thing I think I share with all retirees....when you're "retired" it is REALLY hard to remember what day it is. And I don't think that has anything to do with age ;-).