Stop the Presses: Second adolescence sets Baby Boomers on new paths

Dianne Elizabeth is president and publisher of Springfield Business Journal.

Are you restless? Moody? Experiencing physical changes and episodes of vague yearning and dreaming? Are you between the ages of 55 and 75?

If so, I have recently learned, you may be going through your "second adolescence," a period of turmoil, experimentation, breaking away from the past and self-reinvention described in the book that I picked up and devoured over the holidays. The second adolescence can rock your life but this time without the hormones.

I bought "My Time: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life" by Abigail Trafford, Basic Books, after hearing an interview with the author on KSMU, the Ozarks' public radio station. On the next business day, I received a review copy in my office mail. I had ordered it from the publisher months ago, then forgotten it. A senior moment, I suppose.

Of course, the theme had been constantly on my mind as I watched countless friends and acquaintances make huge life and career changes as they traveled along with me through this unsettling stage of life.

We have felt like pioneers. In the past, people didn't live as long as we Baby Boomers have every reason to expect that we will. At 50, most people can expect to live another 30 or 40 years. So what's next? The path has been largely uncharted and anxiety provoking. "My Time" was inspiring and insightful for me as I burst into what Trafford calls "the bonus decades."

Many of us have lost both our parents. We're orphans now. Maybe we feel like our careers are topping out. After all, we've been at our jobs for a long time now. The kids are grown, and we're not worrying about how to pay for college. Some of us even have our mortgages paid off. At least this is something I will probably never experience. Small comfort.

Does all this mean that we are settling into old age? Absolutely not!

I was awestruck when our long-time bookkeeper for the Springfield Business Journal, Becky Watts Cupp, gave up her practice and went off to be a missionary in Guatemala. And then there is our friend, Fred Eagles, for many years the CEO of Eagles Refrigeration, who now works in massage therapy and the field of alternative medicine.

Both of these individuals report renewed energy and sense of purpose.

These are just two examples of exciting and dramatic changes. Many more are chronicled in Trafford's book. We meet Harvey, who went from physician to novelist and now lives part-time in Paris. I read about Richard, an educator who reinvented himself as a businessman; Libby, who went from New York City publisher to student and academic; and Jim, who transitioned from lawyer to sailor and now runs a sailing charter company.

In fact, I was struck, not only by the stories of businesspeople who have turned away from commerce, but also by the accounts of people who didn't realized their life-long dreams of owning a small business until they were in their 50s or 60s. They are new entrepreneurs, just when many of us are thinking of retirement if we follow our parents' scenarios.

We all know of someone who took early retirement, made a few trips around North America in a new motorhome, and then settled into a precipitous decline in front of a television set. But we Baby Boomers have never been much for tradition. Our generation has changed the world, and we will continue to do it with our bonus decades.

How will you break away from middle age? Transform your loss? Where will your dreams lead you in your quest for challenging work, new ways of giving back and expanding your mind? What kind of legacy will you leave?

"My Time" will help you begin to find some answers. This is the kind of reporting and study which has become a necessity whatever our age as the demographic landslide shapes our lives, the nation and the world.