When Should I Retire? My Struggle

[Nurse Beth]

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Elephant in My Room

I didn’t sign up for this annoying aging thing, but I am getting older. Apparently. I’m 66, at last count. Which I’d like to point out is my early middle sixties, not my late sixties, or even my late middle sixties, but...even so. Unacceptable. Actually, kidding aside, I’m really fairly OK with the aging. It’s not the getting older, per se, that is bothering me.

It’s the big looming elephant in my room. Retirement.

Until recently, it wasn’t even remotely on my radar. It was something that happened to other people. Other people as in old folks. I've been insensitive, especially when I realize that I've been able to work this long while others, even some young people, did not have that choice.

But more and more, retirement seems like a real thing. For me.

What I don’t love is how thinking about retiring is forcing me to examine myself.

Signs it May be Time

There are signs. Friends and colleagues around me are retiring like flies. I have to ask myself if they know something I don’t. Like when to quit.

Sometimes I feel like the last one standing. There’s actually a small group of us my age in the hospital, and we fist-bump or high-five when we run into each other out and about in the hospital or in the elevator. “Still here, right?” “Yep!” We talk in low tones about “How much longer do you have?” knowing it’s not wise to talk openly about retiring at work until you’ve decided.

I’m aware I think about retirement more often, sometimes daily. That’s a change. I think more in terms of not being at work than of being at home. By that, I mean I see it framed more as a loss than a gain.

Recently I was awarded Nurse of the Year in my county by ACNL in the Lifetime Achievement category. Another sign that my career’s at the tail end?

Then there’s my health. My back went out recently and I thought, “Is this it?’ but then I recovered. To work another day, month, maybe years?

Weary Short Timer

More and more I have the mindset of a weary short-timer. I no longer fight every battle, because maybe I’ll be gone before it all matters, anyway. I think I’ve distanced a bit, but then it never sticks. I haven’t quite reached that tipping point of disengagement.

Sometimes I’ll sit back and see a decision being made and just shake my gray-haired head. But... no one asks me.

Admin, "Beth, you've worked here as a professional clinician for over 10 yrs. What do you think? Will this new initiative work?" (scenario that never happens)

Then again, it’s not that they ever did ask me, but my tolerance for repeated mistakes is lower. I’ve seen the pendulum swing to the right and then to the left and back to the right again on any given issue. It’s a bad case of “Been there, Done that”.

I lack enthusiasm for the Flavor of the Month. I zone out if someone starts saying they want to “move the needle” or do or don’t have the “bandwidth” to “pick the low-hanging fruit”. Just don’t admonish nurses to be “more resilient” when taking away resources. It’s not an opportunity to “do less with more”, it’s short-staffing.

So I guess I’m still plenty passionate. I just don’t want to hang on too long as that old, negative, jaded nurse.

I love what Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio, nationally known CCRN guru and speaker, said when I asked her why she still works in ICU. She paused and said, “To be a pain in their a**”

Grief and Fears

Grief is not too strong a word when I think about my retirement. I’m grieving a stage of my life. The biggest, longest stage. Leaving my job is a loss. A loss of who I am and a loss of the community I’ve been a part of for 40 years. I’ll be in a new community. The AARP retirement community. Yikes.

I’d miss helping nurses pass their Arrhythmia exam and connecting with the fresh and bright newly licensed nurses in each new cohort. I’d miss my work team and I still love my job.

I’ve never been fearful. I wasn’t afraid to leave home when I was 16. I wasn’t afraid to leave an unhealthy marriage. I wasn’t afraid to attend nursing school as a single parent of 3 little ones, with no financial support. I wasn’t afraid to be a nurse manager and I wasn’t afraid to write and publish a book. I’m not afraid of taking exams or even of public speaking.

But retirement? Terrified. Well, maybe not terrified. But maybe, yes, a little terrified. What’s so scary?

At heart, it’s a loss of identity, of status.

I dread the, “Hi! What do you do?” “I’m retired” encounter. If I’m not an experienced, competent nurse, then who am I? I like being an expert. What good are all my certifications and accomplishments in retirement? Is my ego really as big as all this sounds? Now that’s scary.

Shouldn’t I base my self-worth on how good of a person I am? I thought I was secure but maybe I’m actually deeply insecure. And am I over-analyzing all this? Probably.

Changes

Then there’s finances. Have I saved enough? Will I be able to live with a new budget? Maybe I spend more money than I realize on work, like gas and potlucks and gifts and clothes, and I’ll save money like others tell me. Or will I have to pinch pennies to buy my grandchildren birthday gifts?

How about my extensive work wardrobe? I work out of an office, some days I wear scrubs, and other days I wear clothes under a lab coat. I love expressing myself through my clothes and colors, and combinations. And shoes. And accessories. Will I be relegated to lounge wear? Will I schlep around in boring leggings, T-shirts and flip-flops? Vain much? Guilty. My vanity needs some structure.

Or will I turn into a couch potato and not get dressed at all? Without my existing structure will I be lost. Is this the beginning of the end?

What will being with my loving husband 24/7 day in and day out be like? Granted, we’ve been married for 21 yrs., but not during the work week. I’ll be switching my work wife for my husband.

Options

Maybe I’ll volunteer. But then I laugh and think, “Right!”. In less than 2 months, I’d probably try to re-organize and take over whatever poor, unsuspecting organization that takes me on as a volunteer. In other words, I’d be working, not volunteering.

Fortunately, I do have other options. I have purposely built bridges to help me transition, such as my side jobs as a nurse writer and subject matter expert. I could definitely spend more time on my blog, nursecode.com., which I would love to do.

But how relevant will I be as a blogger if I don’t know the very latest thing happening in hospitals? What if they initiate electronic white boards or robots or something and I’m not there to critique it, make all my jokes about it?

Final Finale Thoughts

According to Erik Erikson, I’m officially in the final developmental stage of my life- integrity vs despair. I choose integrity. That means not having regrets when I look back. But I do have to reflect on myself closely in order to move forward authentically and grow.

In retirement:

• I can channel my creative energy. I have a huge amount of creative energy and I spend a lot of it for my employer in my practice as a Nursing Professional Development Specialist. Maybe it will be amazing to channel all of it on what I choose that day. Every day.
• I’ll write another book. I’ve always wanted to write a novel or maybe an autobiography.
• I’ll spend more time with family, and I’ll travel more. Garden. Maybe I’ll do take up mosaics.
• I’ll visit my sister in the fall in Vermont and watch the leaves change together.
• I love to learn, I live to learn, and that needn’t change. Maybe I’ll read the classics and Shakespeare and learn something new. Study a new language.
• I’ll sit with this upcoming shift in my identity. It’s my next major life challenge. Deep breath. I’m going to rest in the not-knowing and stay in this space, not avoid it. I can do this.

I think I’ve decided. I’m not going to retire, not right now. I’m warming up to it. But I’m not there yet.

Epilogue

So my husband just sat down beside me and asked me what I’m writing. I told him it’s an article titled “Retirement: My Struggle”. He laughed out loud, which I wasn’t expecting.

“Is that funny?”

“Yes!” (laughing harder)

“Really? So, what about it is funny?” (puzzled)

“Beth, you’re not struggling!”

“I’m not?”

“No! You have too much fun at work! I watch you every day. Honey, you love what you do”

Oh. Right. He’s right

[Walti, LPN, LVN, RN, EMT-I]

I burned out. I'm not ashamed of it, the term was actually first used to describe the mental condition for what happens to nurses. It was borrowed from NASA when they used it to describe the mechanical stage of their rocket firings into orbit, "the first stage has burned out and the second stage has ignition". Now many professions use the term but we were first.

I remember a younger co-worker observing what was happening and questioning her own desire to keep working in the ER. I replied that I was burning out and told her that I'd been working ER for 22 years and that was after a few years in ICU as an RN and that was after 20 years as an Army medic, EMT, LPN/LVN working med-surg, ortho, psych and ICU.

I fell into the profession as a medic, I was a good one and had been selected for advanced training as an independent duty medic meaning we could work without direct supervision of an RN or MD. I attended EMT training as part of an Army mountain rescue team and aced the course. I drove an ambulance after I left the military while I went for my LPN. 10 years later after doing 90-95% of the RN's work for 66% of the pay, I got my RN. I was working as an LVN doing registry work in the ICUs in an around Palm Springs at the time. It was a seamless transition and essentially the only thing that changed was the paycheck, which got a whole lot bigger. That really helped as I was paying off a very expensive custody battle which I had lost.

Anyway, I looked at my coworker and said you are an RN. You will never have a day wondering if your job has meaning. Every day that you go to work you will make the world a better place for someone. As an ER RN you occasionally raise the dead. I can't think of a more noble calling and If I could go back I don't think I'd change anything.

I went to work in a clinic shortly afterwards. It was very busy at times but I never had to code anyone. I had a couple of minor HIPA violations and after the last one, was involuntarily "retired". The hospital was trying to go critical access at the time and they were shedding senior nurses as fast as they could. I had hoped to work until full retirement for social security but was able to take it early a couple of months later.

I was vested in my retirement plan and had opted for a full payout for when I retired. The other option was monthly checks which stopped at death. Your spouse wouldn't receive them and that didn't seem like a place I wanted to leave the DW. We had been making double payments on our mortgage and were easily able to pay off the house with the retirement check. Now between social security for the two of us and what we invested into retirement we are fairly comfortable, not scrimping, occasionally traveling and for the most part, happy.

As an aside and I know that this will upset some of you. As a younger man I enjoyed many outdoor sports including hunting. A couple of days after I was "retired" I was thinking I might like to take up hunting again. I was in a local sporting goods shop looking at deer rifles when one of the ambulance crews stopped by. Within 2 days the head of human resources had transferred out of the area. I never bought the rifle and I never intended her harm. But there is a very small part of me that takes a bit of satisfaction thinking I may have inadvertently caused her some discomfort.

I saved a life my first day on the job at that hospital. A routine medical admission turned into an ICU admit when I suspected why a somnolent young lady was very protective of her fanny pack. I thought that maybe it contained a stash of Vicodin. I talked with the doc and we added an acetaminophen level to her labs, It came back very high. She lived. Nine years later, escorted off of the premises. Oh well, it's retirement.

My "hunting" nowadays consists of hunting for fish, no guns required, just a fishing pole.

Beth, sorry to say that 60 is singular, as is 70. 61, 62 & 63 early 60s. 64, 65, & 66 mid 60s. 67, 68 & 69 late 70s. I'm now weeks away from 70. Go for the retirement, you've earned it. Resting on your laurels can be very satisfying. The only way you'll stop being a nurse is if the board takes your license. But please, continue the blog!

[JoannieO]

Beth, I just loved your article! I've retired a few times in my career, only to go back to nursing. And most recently, just got hired per diem at two different companies: I'll be pushing 70 y/o in December! Retirement isn't hanging your feet off a yacht (as long as you are a middle class American); it's simply doing the same things without working. Volunteering is "unpaid work." I do keep active with exercise classes and other kinds of classes at our local University for Senior citizens (I take classes in dance and music), but sometimes you want to use your skills you have cultivated all your Life. Keep working until you no longer can. From a Keep on Truckin' RN--J.

[Lorri Cook, ADN, RN]

I am very lucky to work for a small, regional hospital whose DON sees your experience, and not your age. She hired me at age 62. She hired a co-worker at 69. We want to work, and are able to do the work. Hire the skill set, not the age.

[CommunityRNBSN, BSN, RN]

I am a new nurse. One of my favorite people in the world is a woman I know who is a retired nurse. She’s around 70 and she worked as an RN full-time ever since she was 17 and enrolled in a hospital training program. She knows EVERYTHING and when I have some story about nursing, she is so calm and objective about it because she’s lived through it all. “Yep that’s how nursing is.” She’s able to have some emotional distance because she doesn’t work in it anymore, but she still has the heart and brain of a nurse.