For The First Time: One Woman's Journey From Career to Retirement: A Blogoir & Ideas For Your Own Personal Adventure

FOR THE FIRST TIME is a great resource for the soon-to-be retired, recently-retired and hope-to-some-day retire population. Sylvia is an amazing writer who distills complex ideas down to actionable plans. Her insight into the joys and sorrows of retirement will be a roadmap and an invaluable support for this potentially traumatic journey for seniors - female or male.

Sylvia started writing this book on July 4th, 4 months before she retired from a 30+ year career in education. Although she's not an American, July 4th has always been an important day for her. Independence Day! Independence. A word that encompasses a universe when it comes to freedom. Sometimes it's defined as "freedom from control or influence." Sometimes it's defined as "the state or quality of being free." In songs people talk of dreaming about it, not being able to live without it; it's both a journey and a destination.

Retirement is a journey into a new kind of freedom which Sylvia could only imagine before she retired. She wasn't sure where the journey would lead, but as she began writing this book she revelled in the memories of the moment she reached the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro (when she turned 50). She knew then that this trek would be enormously challenging. She knew before she retired that the journey from career to retirement would be difficult and filled with unknowns.

This book, through the sharing of personal experience, will help you as you:

• make your decision to retire;
• understand what "don't leave the building until you're done" will mean for you;
• face the dragons that lurk beyond work ... and tame them;
• accept not only being "out of the loop" but not even knowing where the loop is;
• work out the logistics and time management (or lack of such) for your new life;
• redefine who you are when you can be and do anything you want;
• cope with the loneliness and depression which may come knocking at your door;
• reframe the relationships in your life (not as easy as you might think); and
• create your own future

Not so long ago people thought about retirement as something they'd enjoy for a few years before they became truly old. Today, it's more of a 20 - 20 year adventure for many of us. What will those years be like for you? That's a great, gaping unknown. Up until this point in your life you've likely had many markers to point the way: getting an education, raising children, building a career/business, and perhaps climbing a mountain or two. One thing naturally flowed into the next. Retirement has no pre-established markers; we each have to figure out where we want to go in these exciting years and how we want to get there.

Joseph Campbell said "We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the life that is waiting." Lao Tzu said it this way: "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

For The First Time: One Woman's Journey from Career to Retirement fills a growing need for guidance through this transition. It is helpful; giving a very practical slant on a topic that virtually all other authors address only in part.

The key message: Life is waiting for you. Retirement is a time when - for the first time in your life - you can do whatever you want. All you have to do is figure out what that is ... for you.

I began working when I was 12 years old. My first summer job, as a day-camp counselor paid $5/week for the first three weeks and then, because of the great job I was doing, they raised my salary to $10/week. I spent the entire summer’s earnings on a beautiful bathrobe for my mother. I’ve never really stopped working since then. Putting myself through college I did everything from waitressing in a rather sleazy bar to typing dictated notes for physicians. After graduating I started full-time work as a Social Worker; that experience sent me back to school to become a teacher. I’ve taught everything from grade 3 to graduate school, at several schools boards and a number of Faculties of Education. As a single Mom raising three children I often held multiple jobs to make ends meet. My last 13 years of employment were as an Education Officer with the Ontario Ministry of Education where I had responsibility for everything from coordinating the writing of entirely new high school curriculum to developing policies for Gifted Education and ESL. I’ve always looked beyond the experience to the meaning. In October 2008 I retired, and since then I’ve been exploring – and living and blogging about this new territory called “retirement”. For the current generation of women and men, approaching retirement is very different than it was for previous generations. We have different expectations, we have a wider range of opportunities and choices. Many of us have spent time exploring the meaning of our lives, our identity, our inner self, our spirituality, our politics and our sexuality. As we get older, we look for new meanings and a revised consciousness of ourselves. Informed by 60 years of living, I have developed workshops that address questions like these: - What does growing older mean for me? - How is my relationship to work and money changing, and what choices do I have now? - How do I cope with potential ill health and loneliness than can come with older age? - What are the challenges, what are the pleasures, and how can I make the best of this time? For more information about my background, my thinking, and the kinds of workshops that I offer (these can all be tailored to meet your needs) please visit my website at http://www.sylviasolomon.com.