One woman stopped working last September. The full-time job had been sapping her energy, she said, "sucking the life out of me."
Flash forward five months. Turns out long days of leisure aren't all they're cracked up to be.
"The lack of structure is driving me crazy," she said. "I haven't found a meaningful way of spending my time."
Another woman, recently retired after three decades in academia, was similarly stymied.
"So much of our identity, structure and momentum comes from an organizational or institutional situation — and I don't have that any more," she said. "That's the freedom. But it can be a terrifying freedom."
There were sympathetic nods around the table. About 10 people in their 50s and 60s were at the informal, drop-in, combination coffee klatch-support group. It's one of the twice-monthly Saturday Shift-In sessions organized by Shift, a Twin Cities organization that provides support, education, workshops and other resources for people going through midlife transitions.
"There's a really strong, bright, creative energy that I think is bubbling up," Catherine Mullinax-Jones, the group's facilitator, said later. People who have attended the group "still have things they're thinking about doing. I also hear a lot of people going, 'I've always wanted to …' whatever it is."
Some in the group were recently retired, others had been laid off. But they were facing similar issues, asking similar questions. How do you channel that creative energy? How do you execute an idea for a whole new enterprise? Are opportunities wide open, or would people in their 50s and 60s have a tough time breaking in?