I’ve spent most of my adult life building and running my career. I took a great deal of pride in being good at what I did. I didn’t realize that I wrapped my identity around what I did. When asked what I did for a living, I’d say “I’m an apartment developer”, as though that explained who I was. In many respects, it did explain some large part of who I was.

So what do you become when you no longer have that tag line of “who you are”? Right now I tell people that I’m a semi-retired apartment developer, but what about when that is no longer even partly true? I suppose I’ll just say “I’m a retired apartment developer”, or just “I’m retired”. But I well remember being the person that discounted retired people. I don’t know exactly what I thought….that maybe they traveled around the country in Winnebagos and we had nothing in common. Or that they just weren’t relevant to my daily life. Life is a boogar in that way- now it’s me! What do you know.

Faced with how to stay engaged and important to the world, I’m consistently doing little things. At first I tried turning my business experience into a consulting format. Unfortunately, the only potential clients that came forward were ones that frankly I wouldn’t have taken as clients during my heyday. I have never been great at working with people who won’t listen to experience-based advice. Not that they always have to agree with me, but a willingness to at least consider the gifts of knowledge that I have to offer is important to me.

Now, the farther away I get from day-to-day industry experience, the more I realize that perhaps I should seek something different but perhaps related. I keep waiting for the right opportunity to present itself. It may be a volunteer position, or it might be something completely different- I’m not sure. I do know that I still enjoy being engaged with the business community. I’m a work in progress- STILL!