Tricky Transition

One afternoon not long after retiring, psychotherapist Bernice Bratter, 67, of Westwood Hills, Calif., was feeling isolated and restless. Book in hand, she headed to a nearby park. As she was reading there, a homeless man sat down beside her. "All I could think was, 'Is this what my life has come to? Hanging out with the homeless?'" she says.

An expert on aging, Bratter had given no thought to her life after directing a nationally known counseling center. "You'd think that because I'd written and lectured on retirement, it would be a breeze for me," she says. "Well, it was a disaster." Losing her sense of identity as well as the stimulation, daily responsibilities and social interactions of her job left her listless and depressed. Eventually, she returned to work, but this time she planned ahead for her re-retirement.

Bratter gathered 10 Los Angeles professional women to discuss so-called retirement transition and life planning. That first conversation lasted four hours and spawned five other groups of eight to 10 women who meet monthly in one another's houses to talk about career switches, relocation, wellness and the physical changes of aging. The women dubbed their venture Project Renewment and trademarked the name, intending to produce a manual someday to help others replicate their group.

"It's been life altering for me," says Bratter, who used to worry when she went into a store in the middle of the day to buy lipstick that she would be tagged as a retiree. "Most executive women feel that if you aren't productive every minute, you're going downhill. We've learned to give ourselves permission to relax, go slow and have fun."

In the six years since Bratter started it, Project Renewment's cheerleading, brainstorming and 1960s-style consciousness raising have helped launch some impressive second acts. A former health-care executive has just returned from a photography tour of India and is mounting a gallery show. A corporate lawyer became a court-appointed special advocate for abused and neglected children. An ex--probation officer is now an actor.

Across the country, similar grass-roots groups, courses and programs are popping up as 50-plus adults grapple with a period some call "the power years," "my time," "refirement," "the bonus years"--anything but the R word. Through informal gatherings over coffee at Starbucks or $1,000 life-planning courses with speakers, homework and skills assessments, these initiatives provide help for retirees and preretirees who have nowhere else to go for information, moral support and camaraderie during one of life's trickier transitions.

"There are plenty of opportunities to do financial planning for retirement, but when it comes to figuring out a period of life that's as long as midlife in duration, you're on your own," says Marc Freedman, head of Civic Ventures, a San Francisco nonprofit that encourages older adults to remain active citizens. Two years ago, there were just a handful of such programs, but today there are more than 20, and the numbers are growing, Freedman says.