Speaker 1: I talked to many retirees and I get this one.
I'm gonna say fifty sixty five percent of the time,
and it's a different one. They say that retirement, especially
at first, feels weird. It feels weird, and no one
really talks about it. It's not that it feels bad,
not that it's amazing either. It's just strange. It's weird.
It's almost like something was slightly off that you waited
for it, you planned for it, you worked so hard
for decades for it, and then it arrived, and instead
of pure joy, it felt weird. It felt unfamiliar. And
it's not that you're ungrateful. I think you're just in
a transition. And so today I want to talk to
you about retirement. Why retirement feels weird at first, because
there really are real reasons for it. I'm marri In Debranski.
This is life starts at retirement. I produce a retirement
life style video once a week now a lot of
there are quite a few reasons why it feels weird,
but I would say the number one reason is because
your identity shifts overnight. So for thirty, for forty, maybe
even some people for fifty, years, no one questioned your identity,
or you didn't question your identity, and you answered this
one question consistently. When you met someone, Hi, my name's Maureen,
and they go, hi, I'm Bob, so what do you do?
You had an answer, You had an answer. And I
can remember the first time, I really clearly can the
first time someone said to me, Hi, I'm Bob. You know,
nice to meet you, Mareen. What do you do? And
I stumbled. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't
at that time. I couldn't say I'm retired. I know,
it sounded like I was old and useless to say
I retired, and so I made up, not made up,
but I sort of said, oh, I used to be
a sales manager for Yellow Pages. Well that's used to
be I don't. I didn't do it then, but that's
what I said because I didn't have an answer, and
it was I realized then, like your job isn't just
an income, it's an identity, it's status. Oftentimes for sure,
it's structure, and it's built in purpose and then just
one day, for most of us, it just disappears. One
day that it just disappears. So when someone says hey,
what do you do? Well, yeah, I don't know. I'm retired,
And no one really prepares you for that emotional drop.
Even if you hated your job, even if you were ready, ready, ready, ready,
there's still that little bit of adjustment when your title vanishes.
You're no longer like a manager, you're no longer a nurse,
you're no longer a business owner, a teacher. My sister's
just about to retire. She works in a few roll home.
She can no longer say, oh, I work in the
funeral business. And that's always a conversation starter. Right now,
after you retire, you're just you and it sounds freeing,
and it really is in the long run, but it
also lets you feel different because you have to define
yourself differently now and that takes time. Number two, this
one is very very very rarely if ever talked about.
And I'll say it just takes you a while. I'll
use the word calm down, But maybe it just takes
to your system a while to adjust, because when you
work for decades, oftentimes your nervous system, your body runs
on urgency. I'll say it has deadlines, it has meetings,
you have emails, you have schedules, you have problem solving,
and even if you weren't really stressed constantly, you were activated.
You always had something. Hirement removes that urgency. It suddenly
it's like there's no one to bug you, there's no
one to need anything by nine am, there's no one
waiting for your decision, there's no fires to put out,
and your body doesn't instantly know how to relax. At first,
it can feel like restlessness. Maybe it can feel like boredom,
even anxiety discomfort, but it's actually your whole entire system recalibrating.
You're actually coming down from decades of adrenaline, and that
takes time. Number three, I think is too much. Freedom
feels unsettling. So we often think that retirement will or
that freedom sorry will automatically mean more happiness. But here's
really the truth. Most of us like a bit of structure.
We like some rhythm, We like knowing what the day holds,
we like being needed, and when every day is wide open,
it can feel disorienting. So at first you get up.
When you first retire, it's like a relief. It's like
you're on vacation. I love it, I'm on vacation. But
then all of a sudden, Monday doesn't feel any different
than Thursday. The weeks blur together, you lose a sense
of momentum, and after a few months, the lack of
those edges maybe can feel strange, not wrong, but just unfamiliar.
Freedom without structure can really feel like we're we're floating,
like we have nothing like. It's weird until you build anchors.
Number four. This one is big for me. Right now.
Your social world changes immediately. Work, whether you enjoyed your
work or not, work gave you built in connection even
if you didn't like anybody at work. You saw people,
you talked, you left, you collaborated, you had something to do.
Retirement removes that daily interaction overnight, and you don't realize
how much those micro connections mattered. Maybe it's just a
hallway chat, maybe it's a hey see tomorrow. Sometimes you
just kind of complained to each other about what was
happening at work. But without them, the days really feel quieter,
and that quiet feels heavier than expected. Doesn't have to
mean you're lonely. It just means that your social rhythm changed,
and that rhythm was comforting. And that's why retirement often
feels weird at first. You don't have that automatic social
interaction something you have to work on. Number five, and
this one surprised me. Time feels different. Now, let me explain.
When you're working, time feels structure. I have a deadline,
I have projects, I have vacation weeks, I have a quarter,
I have the end of the year, whatever that might
look like. But when you retire, time stretches. There's no
next big promotion you're working on, there's no big project
that has to close by the end of the year,
and that really can feel freeing, and often long term
it does, but it can also feel like is this it? Wow?
Is this it? And you start becoming aware of more
time passing. Not in a dramatic way, although that can
happen too, but often it's just reflective, like, holy cow,
that is weird. It's different, and that awareness can make
your retirement feel heavier, maybe at least at first, so
passing time seems to speed up when you're retired. Number six.
I did a video recently about the lies, the thirteen
lies you were told at when you retired, and one
of them was sort of this, in a roundabout way,
you expected constant joy. We're told that retirement will bring
you happiness. Well, yes, but no either. So we're sold
this belief that retirement is pure bliss. You'll be drinking
on a golf course, you'll be having traveling, you'll be
in the sand in the sandy beach all of the time.
But that real life still happens. So when you feel neutral,
or when you feel slightly off, or when you feel uncertain,
or when you have to take out the garbage and
clean the house and do the laundry again, you think
that there's something wrong, that retirement shouldn't be that way.
But transition, which is what retirement is, isn't instant and happiness.
It's adjustment, and adjustment is rarely glamorous. It's quiet, it's subtle,
it's gradual. So the good news is, though, and here's
what really, No one tells you that weird feeling. It fades.
It fades as you build rhythm, as you create a
purpose for your new life, as you form new routines,
as you adjust. But having said that, you need to
build those new rhythms, you need to create that new purpose,
you need to form those new routines, and you need
to adjust, So you have to put yourself out there
in order for that to change. So retirement doesn't need
to feel weird forever. It feels uncomfortable often before it
feels settled and unfamiliar doesn't mean it's wrong, It just
means it's newire. If retirement felt strange to you at first,
I'd like to hear in the comments, and I'd like
to hear honestly what you did to get out of
that weird feeling. Because the less alone people feel, the
better it is, and the more you're remarkable, your retirement
will be. I'm Marie Debranski. This is Life Starts at Retirement.
I produce a retirement lifestyle video once a week, and
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