The Things Nobody Tells You About Retirement, How Your Hands Change With Age, and Giving Wisely Through Your Estate Plan

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History (Non-Fiction): The Great Sea by David Abulafia – This sweeping history traces the peoples, empires, trade, and conflicts that shaped the Mediterranean across thousands of years.

Memoir: Slow Noodles by Chantha Nguon with Kim Green – A Cambodian refugee recounts surviving war, genocide, and displacement while preserving memories of home through food and family recipes.

Self-Help: The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz – This practical guide explains how managing your energy, rather than simply your time, can improve performance, productivity, and well-being.

Romance: Next of Kin by Hannah Bonam-Young – Two strangers caring for their younger siblings agree to share a home, creating an unconventional family as their reluctant partnership turns into love.

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People spend years planning for retirement. They think about where they'll live, how they'll spend their time, and all the things they've been looking forward to doing "someday."

But once retirement arrives, many people discover there are parts of it that no one ever mentioned—not because they're negative, but because they're difficult to explain until you've experienced them yourself. Here are a few of those quiet surprises.

Many people expect retirement to feel dramatically different. Instead, the first Monday often begins much like any other. You make coffee, look out the window, and wonder what the day will bring.

The biggest change isn't that life suddenly becomes exciting. It's that, over time, you realize the day belongs entirely to you.

During working life, most people’s weeks are organized around a defined schedule: work Monday through Friday, with weekends and some holidays off. Even days have a level of consistency to them: arrive in the office around nine, daily meetings starting at eleven, lunch between one and two, home by six, dinner soon after.

In retirement, those markers of time disappear. Instead, you have to find new events around which to frame your time:

Some people might look at retirement and see nothing but emptiness on a schedule, but that doesn’t have to be the case at all. Indeed, you can likely measure your days with much more than you could before.

It's a surprisingly common question. At first, it can feel as though people are expecting a replacement answer for your career—a new title or another full-time pursuit.

Over time, though, many retirees become comfortable answering differently. Perhaps you volunteer, travel occasionally, care for grandchildren, restore old furniture, read widely, or simply enjoy having the freedom to decide what each day holds. Eventually, you realize you don't need a job title to explain who you are.

One unexpected pleasure is discovering the advantages of doing everyday things when everyone else is busy. You can visit a local café on a quiet Tuesday morning. You can enjoy a peaceful walk through the park. . You can sleep in if you want, or spend a leisurely morning with a coffee on your porch. You can start a complicated new recipe while everyone’s still wondering what they have at home. 

These small freedoms seem minor, but they often become some of retirement's greatest luxuries.

Many hobbies begin almost by accident. Perhaps you borrow one book that leads to five more. Maybe you take a photography class, plant your first vegetable garden, join a local choir, or start researching your community's history. Without deadlines or pressure, curiosity has room to grow, and you have room to grow with it.

Earlier in life, a productive day might have meant crossing dozens of tasks off a list. Later on, a wonderful day may include a wide variety of things:

Bit by bit, achievement gives way to enjoyment, connection, and contentment—all of which are achievements in their own right.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that retirement isn't the final chapter people sometimes imagine. There are still new friendships to make, places to explore, skills to learn, and experiences waiting to happen. Life doesn't simply slow down because you’ve stopped working—instead, it often opens up in unexpected ways.

No one can fully describe retirement before you've lived it. Alongside the practical changes come subtler discoveries about time, identity, friendship, and everyday life. Many of the best parts aren't the ones people talk about beforehand—they're the ones you gradually uncover for yourself.

We're looking for seniors who are embracing life with enthusiasm, purpose, and adventure. Whether you're traveling the world, starting a business, volunteering, pursuing a passion, learning new skills, or simply making the most of every day, we'd love to hear your story.

Think that might be you?

Email [email protected] with a photo and a short bio. We may feature you in an upcoming edition of Seniors Magazine.

One advantage of getting older: you've had more time to become yourself.

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“The Apartment Above the Bakery”
From the life overview of Ruth A., 78, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Shared with permission.

In 1970, I was twenty-three and had just started working at a bank downtown. To avoid a long commute, I rented a tiny apartment above a bakery in South Philadelphia. The apartment didn’t offer much—just one bedroom, a narrow kitchen, and a window that faced a nearby alley. It wasn’t exactly glamorous, but there was one thing that made it lovely: Every morning at five thirty, the smell of fresh bread traveled through the floorboards and hit my nostrils by the time I awoke.

The bakery was run by a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Russo. I didn’t know them well at first. Sometimes I would see Mr. Russo hauling flour through the back door and Mrs. Russo sweeping the sidewalk before opening the bakery.

Then on one particularly cold morning, I came downstairs without breakfast. I was in a hurry for work, and Mrs. Russo took one look at me before handing me a warm roll.

“You’re too skinny,” she said.

It wasn’t true, of course.

After that, she started leaving something outside my apartment door whenever she had leftovers. Sometimes I’d get a piece of focaccia. Other times she might leave two cookies. Once, I even got a whole apple pie.

I felt bad about taking so much for free, so I always tried to pay her. But she refused every time.

For almost three years, I stayed in that apartment. When I moved out, I gave Mrs. Russo a plant for the bakery window. She said she didn’t need a plant but kept it anyway.

When I returned to that neighborhood about twenty years later, the bakery was gone. The building also looked smaller than I had remembered.

But for a second, as I stood on the sidewalk, I could almost smell the bread again.

***

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Choose an animal or plant and this interactive resource shows where it has been recorded around the world, drawing on an enormous collection of biodiversity data. You can explore species you recognize from your own backyard or investigate creatures living thousands of miles away. It’s a fascinating way to see how life is distributed across the planet without turning the experience into a biology lesson.

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You don't need to summarize your entire life. One specific story can be far more revealing.

Think beyond major milestones. Describe the house where you grew up, what your parents were like, your first job, a family tradition, a mistake that taught you something, or what an ordinary Saturday looked like when you were 20.

The StoryCorps Great Questions list offers prompts about family, childhood, relationships, work, values, and life experiences that can help uncover stories worth recording.

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Names and dates are useful, but everyday details bring a letter to life. What did your childhood home smell like? What did groceries cost when you first lived on your own? Which songs did everyone know? What family sayings would make no sense without an explanation?

If you're unsure about a historical detail, Chronicling America lets you search millions of digitized historic newspaper pages and can help you revisit events and places from earlier decades.

If you're handwriting your letters, use good-quality paper and store them somewhere dry and protected from light. The National Archives' guidance on preserving family papers explains how to protect letters, documents, and other family records.

Consider making a digital copy as well. Scan each finished letter and give the files descriptive names that include the writer, recipient, and date. Tell at least one family member where the originals and copies are stored.

Don't worry about sounding profound. Future generations may treasure the ordinary details most—the expressions you used, the stories you remembered, and the chance to hear your voice through words written especially for them.

When you buy a phone, tablet, computer, or other electronic device, you may have both a warranty and the option to purchase a protection plan. They sound similar, but they can provide different types of coverage.

A manufacturer’s warranty is generally included with the device at no additional cost. It typically covers defects or failures caused by manufacturing problems for a specific period. It usually does not cover accidents such as dropping your phone or spilling coffee on your laptop.

Keep your receipt and a copy of the warranty. If something stops working, check the warranty before paying for a repair—you may already be covered.

Protection plans or service contracts cost extra and may extend coverage beyond the original warranty. Some plans also cover accidental damage, but coverage varies considerably.

Before buying one, check the deductible, coverage period, exclusions, repair process, and whether it duplicates the manufacturer’s warranty. Also consider the device’s value: paying for years of protection on an inexpensive device may cost more than replacing it.

The key is to know exactly what you’re paying to protect against before adding another monthly or upfront expense.

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Unscramble the letters to find a famous person, event, or object. Think you know it? Reply with your answer and show off your brainpower.

Today’s clue: Small vinyl single commonly played at 45 RPM.

45 CRDROE

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