Separate Worlds

I live in two worlds. Sometimes they collide; mostly, I keep them separate.

When my children grew up and went off to school, I said to myself, “You’re a career woman waiting to happen.” Marshalling my community contacts and experience, I applied and was hired as executive director of Federated Arts of Manchester, NH, an umbrella fundraising and public-relations agency for nine visual and performing arts organizations in the city. We really put the arts on the map in Manchester. It was very fulfilling. I made exciting corporate and media connections.

But, alas, my husband became ill during this period and for a long time afterward. The eventual diagnosis was Alzheimer’s disease. Suspecting this was the case and that I would long outlive him, I realized that there had to be another life for me after he died.

He was a gentle intellectual, and I hoped that we could share our later years together. I did my mourning while he was sick and didn’t mourn when he died. In fact, his death relieved the suffering of seeing his brilliant mind diminish and his body disintegrate.

I was president of a public-relations company for 15 years. It was a very happy situation and I felt good about where I was. I was a rainmaker and the firm prospered. In 1991, I announced my retirement. I went through a gradual phase-out and buyout and dealt with a few tough legal issues, but in the end the departure was amicable and I was ready to begin a new phase of my life. The thought of retirement was not difficult at all.

Fortunately, shortly before retirement, somebody showed me a newspaper clipping about HILR and I sensed that this was really what I want to do. As a science major I had veered away from liberal arts courses, and I always felt there was a big lack in my education. So I applied and was accepted. I’ve been at HILR for 16 years and have loved every moment of it. I think of myself now as a perpetual student.

Besides the academic challenges of HILR, I have had an opportunity to become involved in the organizational aspects of the community. To borrow from the German, Was Mann kann, Mann sollte. What one is able to do, one should—you’re obligated to do what you do best. I’ve served in many capacities at HILR, including the presidency of the Council.

At the beginning of retirement, I identified myself as a former public-relations professional. I had a hard time divorcing my real identity from my professional identity. I worked very hard to separate the two. I had used my professional identity as a crutch to give my value to my life. I had to discipline myself to avoid the association. I wanted people to know me as I am. For example, I stopped introducing myself as former president of Porter McGee Company and instead I started to identify myself as “community activist” or “public citizen.” Now that’s how I’m known.

Aging and mortality have not been particularly salient for me, although when I read the segments in New Pathways for Aging on “Aging and Mortality,” I developed a heightened consciousness about my own mortality and revised my end of life planning. Fortunately I’m very healthy. I exercise for over an hour every day that I can, walking the treadmill, riding a stationary bike, and doing upper-body exercises at a senior-center gym near my house. In good weather I walk three miles a day on a municipal track.

Well, that’s one side of my story. It’s really not very complicated. On the other hand, my family life is not easy, though it’s very much a part of who I am. I have three sons, each of whom is very different from the others, and none of them is married, although I do have a grandson.

It would be nice to have each of the boys happily married and to have a larger family. But I don’t and that’s okay. For years I have been home base, the place where they come together and get a chance to interact with each other. They enjoy it and it gives my grandson a sense of family and solidity.

These two worlds—my personal/academic life and my family life— are very separate. I try, if I can, not to let them overlap, but sometimes they collide and life becomes difficult. Learning and participating at HILR, however, makes me very happy, so I get totally immersed in it.

For some people, HILR is a safe haven where they can process personal issues. I don’t want to process my personal issues at HILR. HILR gives me a refuge because I don’t have to deal with my family issues when I’m here, and learning for its own sake is more important than learning as a respite. While others may use the HILR experience in order to come to an understanding of a major life issue, I try to keep them apart. HILR has helped me develop the real me.

The subjects that I study are a challenge to my mind, not my emotions. The family issues challenge my emotions. I try to keep them totally separate, and out of the subject matter of my courses. My courses are very intense and I immerse myself in them. This is not denial; it’s my way of dealing with life—and it works.

On average, I commute an hour-and-a-half each way from Manchester, NH, to Cambridge, MA. Because I have been very involved in the HILR community, I make the trip nearly a hundred times a year—two or three times a week during semesters, and often during other months. Nearly 40 percent of these trips are made with my friend, also named Ellie. When I drive alone I listen to music on public radio. I have a sense of freedom when I’m driving down the highway. I constantly think of pleasant things and how nice it is to come to Cambridge; going home, about how nice it is to leave the city. I don’t do the commute in spite of the distance; for me, it’s a pleasurable thing, not a big deal.

I regret that I can’t have the close friendships among HILR colleagues I would like to have. My commuting distance prevents me from going to movies, theater, and other social events with the friends I have made here. I do belong to a book club comprised of HILR friends. We meet every two weeks during the summer. My commuting costs are not incidental. Instead of going to more theater, I buy more gas. I’ve talked about moving to Cambridge for the past 16 years, but I can’t afford to and certainly not now that I’m helping to pay the tuition for my grandson’s boarding school. I have other large financial responsibilities for my family, so I have to think of that, too.

When people retire to the Cambridge area they find an intellectual and social home at HILR. People here, for the most part, are from similar educational and economic backgrounds. And at our age, there’s really little or no competition. The fact that you can have a substantive conversation with someone who is your own age and is not threatening is a big draw.

Some members speak of concern that after many years at HILR, they might come to feel the organization no longer holds the same allure for them that it once did, that somehow it might fail them. I think they have an “attitude.” I don’t feel that way at all. Each semester we accept new members with fresh ideas and interests. Rather, I fear that at some point, it will be I who will fail HILR because of physical or mental incapacity. When that happens, I hope I will recognize my incapacity and become an associate member, giving my cherished place to a deserving baby boomer.

My worlds are separate, but I’m able to endure my world of personal issues because HILR imbues me with the riches of Homer, history, literature, philosophy, and a new community. This is my peace. It’s a wonderful reward in retirement.

Next