New wife & I are both 64. She’s now fully retired after a couple years of PT work in her field. I’m still working full-time for another 10 months at most, then by law must retire completely.
At work at least I’m at the height of my powers. Which aren’t all that great in an absolute sense but are the best I’ve ever had or will have in this occupation. I’m valued for my experience and wisdom if you will. Due to the generational turnover now engulfing my industry, I have the opportunity to mentor lots of new folks, which is by far the most satisfying thing I do.
I also find I now have the perspective to deal with the never-ending parade of petty personalities and recurrent annoyances with skill and Zen, rather than the impatient arrogant irritation of my earlier years. That’s very satisfying. Due to our weird worklife, “full-time” isn’t exactly full time. So the overall workload still leaves time and energy for a personal life. So work is a pleasant break from home, and home is a pleasant break from work. I know I will miss that swip-swapping a lot.
As to non-work …
We’ve just moved to a new residence a couple miles from our old one. I’ve shed all the responsibilities appurtenant to my Big Man On Campus role as recent former president of our condo association and friend, acquaintance, and servant leader to 300 people. So far I’m enjoying the absence of work & BS, but soon enough the drop-off in friends, random chit-chat around the grounds, and stuff to do will become an issue.
I don’t see myself ever getting deeply involved in other organized volunteer projects. I’d sooner see myself doing as the esteemed QtM has described his retirement: Advancing my own agenda on my own schedule with negligble responsibilities to anyone beyond my wife. Who herself is pretty self-sufficient too.
I hope that won’t just feel empty and aimless after a while. I doubt it will. But if it does, I’ll come up with a plan. Health & vigor permitting. Both of which so far I have in spades. Fingers crossed.
So back to the OP:
Do I feel respected? Absolutely. Do I feel irrelevant? Absolutely not. Ask me again in 10 years and the answers may well be different. But not yet.
Yes, I was being ironic in reference to the comments about relevance among the posters on this thread, noting that most (not all) of them, while feeling old, would not have been old enough to recall when our/their population cohort was identified as the most relevant in Time’s annual splash.
My wife and I are very much like you Dinsdale. Both 62 retirement on the horizon, financial fine. No kids though. My Wife is more social than I, which is fine. I only want a few close friends.
But irrelevant? No. I still have way to much shit to take care of for work and family. I want to retire gracefully in a few years, but it’s going to cause a shit show I’m sure. I constantly have more things to take care of in my home life that I can carve out time for (two plumbing related floods this summer and fall). I absolutely love it when I can cross something off my list that I absolutely have to do, both work and home. The last 6 months have probably been the most busy hectic time in my life. My mom recently died too, so I’m trying to take care of her estate. And another house. Death is complicated.
it will be interesting to see how you when/if you ever move off that mountain top to a place requiring less dramatic upkeep. We’ve even discussed recently at what point we would hire out our basic yard work/housecleaning. On the one hand, we don’t derive a lot of “joy” from such tasks. But on the other, if we weren’t even responsible for such mundane maintenance…
Our kids are all independent adults. It is surprising to be on this side, where they really don’t NEED us for much, and have enough else on their plates.
Yesterday some good friends came into town, and we drove into Chicago to meet them for dinner. Took 1.5 hours to drive the 20-ish miles. Loved the conversation, could have easily done w/o the drive and spending that much (which we certainly have) on very rich food.
And my work - I’m just putting in hours, making widgets. After so long at it, I can do a far better than average job with relatively little effort.
Oh, I know. My Wife and I are talking about it, and are trying to figure out where to go. I really don’t want to buy another plow truck. My current one should be good for about 10 years.
We know we will never be able to keep up with it here. I’m surprised the altitude hasn’t driven us away due to health issues. My cousin and best friend that lives in Denver, can’t visit up here because of COPD and asthma. She herself may need to move to lower elevation.
I just fix broken things at this point at work. Keep the lights on. It is agreed that my main application should be replaced, and I shouldn’t really do that. Whomever is going to develop it will need to maintain it. It’s not likely to be me. Doesn’t make sense.
I/we first hired out yardwork & housecleaning on my owned single-family home back about age 40. Haven’t looked back. I/we still did all the laundry, made the bed, kept the place neat, cleaned up the kitchen after cooking a mess, but haven’t swabbed out a toilet, really de-fingerprinted and de-waterspotted a fridge front, washed a window, or run a vacuum in a very long time. Don’t miss that a bit as I never derived much satisfaction from cleaning. This isn’t about money to burn; the service was pretty cheap versus the time it saved both of us with full time professional but not real high-paying jobs. I still did a lot of minor DIY maintenance stuff: e.g. toilet & faucet replacements, new light switches, minor painting, replacing doorknobs, upgrading ceiling fans, etc. Hired out any construction or flooring work.
Bought and moved to a condo at age 55. So all exterior and common area stuff was the Association’s problem, not mine. As are the drains. By law, we can’t do interior DIY, though some folks do. Hired out 95+% of what little I’d done on the house. Ssh! don’t tell about the 5%. Didn’t really miss it. The 3 trips to HD to get the parts, then the right parts, then return the overage parts. The skinned knuckle every friggin’ time. Just didn’t miss that.
A few months ago at age 64 I/we moved to a rented apartment. When the HVAC filter needs changing I fill out a webform and the help shows up later that day. Same with burnt out lightbulbs or clogged toilets if that ever happens. I can’t say my feeling of self-worth has declined even a smidgen.
Perhaps paradoxically, the apartment is now so small (~1300 SF) that my wife wants to clean it herself, not have hired help. Of course the Roomba and its stable-mates do a lot of that.
I resisted getting a yard service, but did it when we were going to be away for six weeks and didn’t want to grow a jungle. When we went on a cruise once the damn dandelions were taller than me.
We’ve kept it, since it is a relief to not have to worry about grass and shrub trimming. I get plenty of time in the yard working on the garden. I’ve used some of the free time to extend it. So think about eliminating the jobs you don’t like and keeping the ones you do.
Respected? Still yes, albeit from fewer people. Irrelevant? Unfortunately it’s yes on that one too.
66, retired 4 years ago as software engineer. I have moved on from, or past, many of my old skills and I find I have a great deal of experience, but not much to add.
Examples:
I’m a member of a programmer’s forum. I read a lot, but contribute little. The majority is 20-somethings starting in the field. I started out using IBM card readers, but I don’t think the younglings need my clever tips on organizing card decks, or how to use an 029 keypunch.
I spent 30 years as a Flight Instructor and occasional ferry pilot. But health and other concerns have forced me out of it, and I find I can add little to any current discussion. Recently the SDMB had a lengthy thread regarding the B-17 crash in Dallas. Despite working a few years on a B-17 crew, having logged time in the plane, and having flown* years ago in several airshows including the one where it crashed – I read the thread for days and couldn’t think of a single thing to add. It was just too long ago for me to have anything relevant.
My wife and I are (were) experienced water skiers, but had to stop due to health reasons. Went with my son/SO in their new boat, and I was pressed into service as driver. It had a glass cockpit like an airplane, and I was constantly fighting it’s “self-driving” controls. Hell, I can’t even drive a ski boat anymore.
It seems the rate of change of skills and even hobbies are easily outrunning me, and I find myself increasingly irrelevant to old activities.
*Not as pilot. Just unskilled labor who got to ride along.
I think the advice you could give to them is not how to create a formatting card for the keypunch (I’ve done that) but back then, when you submitted batch jobs you had to wait to get results for, you had to think before you typed. It’s great that today you can be careless, and fix syntax errors quickly, but if people rush into things they’ll wind up with much harder to fix and find logic errors.
I retired just before covid. Scared of being irrelevant, so took on a university teaching role and started consulting. Did lots of volunteer work as well. It was all busy work. Now I’m over the anxiety, and have realized this is just a new phase. A good one. You have time and resources to learn new things, meet new people. Seize the day! Do a new thing! Time’s wasting!
Good news: the more irrelevant you are, the more time you’ll have for reading, music and golf.
My strategy: Get over it.
It bothered me at first, but since I can’t MAKE people turn to me and ask “Hey, Gramps, what do you think about Eldin Ring vs Neon White?”, I might as well enjoy it.
So I’ve embraced my invisibility, and I can contentedly sit in a crowded coffee joint and read or draw, and no one even notices me.
