It’s been two years since, at 65, I left my full-time job as managing editor of Next Avenue (PBS’s site for people over 50) and set out to not retire.
I wanted to share some thoughts on life in retirement for people who are thinking about doing it or who are working on it, as well as the stories of two other people who are at this crossroads.
One is Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, 70, who just celebrated the one-year anniversary of the article he has been writing in non-retirement, The Golden State, about aging in California. The other is John Kelly, a longtime Washington Post columnist, who agreed to the buyout at age 61 and is contemplating the next chapter of his work.
Steve Lopez: “Live your life”
For the past two and a half years, Lopez has worked at the Los Angeles Times three-quarters time for three-quarters pay. He calls it “modified hybrid retirement.”
Lopez works on his column every day, but now has 12 weeks of vacation that he uses to travel with his wife and see his daughter play in college tennis tournaments..
Commenting on his co-ed retirement, Lopez told me: “I really love it and I feel kind of lucky that I did it this way.”
“My decision to continue working has not only rejuvenated me; “You helped save me.”
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Lopez told me that working in retirement was partly therapeutic after his son died two years ago at age 43. “For me, it was about: If you stand still, you’ll go crazy.” So, I kept working. I’m still worried about full retirement. I get stressed when I don’t have to do something, when I don’t have a deadline.
I feel the same way.
That’s why I write “The View From Unretirement” column at MarketWatch, freelance at places like Fortune, Next Avenue, and AARP, volunteer most weekends and mentor college students and recent grads at NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute, where I’ll be director of digital media strategies. For the third year in a row this June.
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My wife Liz says I’m not retired. I say I am. We agree to disagree.
Lopez told me that interviewing people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 100s for his column has taught him how to make the most of life at any age. He is surprised by how many people are thriving in this season of their lives.
Lopez’s new and inspiring role model is one of them: Pete Titi, 100, who studies fractal geometry and produces computer-based art projects. Lopez wrote that Titi is “the first demonstration of the idea that we should all grow old, but none of us should.”
Lopez, a one-time guitarist, says his biggest regret about not retiring is not joining a garage band. But after writing his anniversary column, he received six offers to chat to others, and says he plans to accept one.
Lopez’s advice: Don’t act your age; Don’t even think about it.
“We tell ourselves we can’t do things because we’re a certain age, and that’s really BS if you want to do it, go ahead and do it,” Lopez said. “I was a little nervous about playing guitar. It seems a bit pathetic for me to be at this age and watch videos – how do I play this song or that song? But I’m glad I did it. I’m enjoying it and I’m getting better. So yeah, Live your life.”
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John Kelly: “Who will I be next?”
John Kelly is trying to figure out how to live his life after leaving his position at The Washington Post, where he worked since 1989 and wrote nearly 4,600 daily “Washington John Kelly” columns since 2004.
In one of his final columns, Kelly wrote: “I’m a little worried about what I’ll do next, about what I’ll do.” He is the next.”
He told me that his wife, Ruth, who retired in 2023 from her job as a satellite industry lawyer (now an adjunct law school professor and board member), said, “Oh, John, he’ll always write. He’s been writing every day for 30 years.”
“It’s too early to say,” Kelly told me. I have a lot of ideas and I always think it would be nice to spend more time on everything that I manage to implement with a deadline every day. It would be nice to have a project to spend weeks or months on.
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His readers offered their advice, generally saying: Don’t jump into anything too early. Kelly told me he’s embracing that feeling, and using his newfound free time to think about how to help his parents, clean out his garage, do some filing, and spend more time traveling including seeing his two daughters in England and Oregon and his folks up north. Carolina.
He also might play more with for him A band of old-time musicians: Airport 77.
Kelly is excited, if a little apprehensive, about his next chapter. “I don’t feel like I have to win the lottery to enjoy the coming years, no matter how long they are,” he said.
One thing I’m likely to discover, as I did during my last year of non-retirement, is that life will have its ups and downs. In my case, it was mostly caregiving — helping my wife care for her mother and one of her siblings, both of whom had been going through difficult times recently.
I’ve also had unexpected work and volunteer opportunities come my way, which I’ve been thrilled to have, but also some projects I wish I’d gotten but didn’t. Disappointing, yes, but not devastating.
I have the same attitude as Lopez and Kelly: This stage of life is what you make it happen and sometimes it just happens.