“So have you thought about what you want to do with your last two rodeos before you retire?”
The words hit me like a truck. I’m 45. I’ve barely started greying. I’m perimenopausal at most. But here I was, in a routine performance discussion, being asked to start thinking about wrapping it up. Not maliciously. Just ... expectedly. While sitting with a full inbox, a full calendar, a head full of plans and still – frankly – a full tank.
In a world obsessed with youthful potential, that casual question carried the weight of something deeper. It triggered an uncomfortable awareness many women whisper about but rarely say out loud: Am I becoming invisible? Even while we’re still leading teams, raising children and holding together families and workplaces, there comes a point when the world stops looking at us in quite the same way. You start to feel less seen, less heard, less sought after.
Although I’m not there yet, retirement seems to be more than a career ending – it’s the unravelling of a set of identities women have carried for decades. It’s the letting go of roles that, while exhausting, also gave structure and purpose: leader, mom, partner, mentor, emotional anchor, planner of everyone’s lives, fixer of what breaks, peacemaker, the one who remembers birthdays, carries traditions, and listens when others fall apart.
Many women will probably feel guilty for no longer wanting to be needed in the same way. For wanting a chapter that is more about becoming than giving.
Psychologists often speak of retirement as a type of identity. For women it carries another layer: the quiet dislocation from the sense of being essential. That’s why this stage of life
can trigger a sense of loss. We’ve been conditioned to find value in what we do, not in who we are.
And what does becoming look like?
In South Africa women live on average more than five years longer than men. That means potentially twenty years of post-retirement. There are only so many novels you can read. Not everyone wants to run a soup kitchen or write memoirs. Or do you want to learn to DJ? Teach others to spin, code, paint or simply breathe again?
This chapter demands reinvention, well before the retirement party. We should be asking: What do I need to get in place now to allow for a smooth transition?
Do I have help at home and do I need it? Do I have hobbies or an unfulfilled passion I want to explore? How physically able am I to take things on? Do I want to give back to my community? And how do I make the most of the “rodeos” I have left – to do meaningful work and leave a legacy?
And then, can I afford what I’m planning? How will my savings be structured after R-day and what will my income be? Do I need to top up my savings now, and by how much?
It’s time to ask ourselves what we want outside of our responsibilities. Preparing for retirement is about saving money, but also about making room for joy, rest, risk and rediscovery. Room to no longer be only useful but still valuable.
I am excited about giving myself permission to imagine new beginnings.