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This year, more than any other, I have been marking the retirement of many friends and colleagues with whom we have collaborated over the years. The pandemic accelerated some, age made others more likely. My first retirement was 10 years ago. I am about to start my second one. My husband, Dennis Sasso, just celebrated his retirement after 47 years as spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck. So, I have been thinking a lot about this transition.
Transitions are hard, whether they be joyous, like graduation or a new baby, or sad, like a divorce or a death. Retirement falls somewhere in between. You take a deep breath and finally exhale as you taste a sweet freedom. But there is sorrow in leaving what you have known, what has helped define the person you are. That liminal place between where you were and the unknown place where you are going is amorphous, unstructured.
When you are working, you know what you have to do every day, what is expected of you. Now, all of sudden, there are no schedules. People keep asking what you will do next.
Here is what I have learned: It is OK not to know what you will do next. It is even good to get lost a bit, to rest awhile in the space between what you knew and what you are yet to discover. I am reminded of the words of Robert Frost: “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”
This is what the afternoon knows: It is possible to break old habits and not to let circumstances control you. You can hit a wall and climb it or make a door. You never lose what you have fashioned, the people whose lives you have touched and the ones whose lives have touched yours.
Remember that you don’t have to prove yourself anymore. Be gentle on yourself. Surprise yourself. Remember that you are still evolving. Social psychologist Daniel Gilbert reminds us, “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think that they’re finished.” Retirement is part of life’s journey; it is not the end.
Martin Buber, A Jewish philosopher who had a profound impact on my rabbinate, taught, “To age is a glorious thing, when you have not unlearned what it means to begin.”
Here are some wishes for a new beginning:
May you continue to find reasons to laugh and stories to tell.
May you continue to open books and appreciate original thinking.
May you gather with old friends and still make new ones.
May your family stay close, and your love be forgiving.
May you find comfort in the familiar yet relish the surprise of the unknown.
May you keep wrestling with big ideas and never stop asking questions.
May you continue to dream and welcome the visions of the young.
May you accept what is but never stop working for what ought to be.
May the rhythm of your past always make music in your soul.•
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Sasso is rabbi emerita at Congregation Beth-El Zedeck and director of the Religion, Spirituality and the Arts Initiative at IUPUI.
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