About
5I am Jean Potuchek, a professional sociologist who has taught at liberal arts colleges for more than thirty years. Most recently and for most of those years, I was on the faculty at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A few years ago, I embarked on the next phase of my life, retirement, and I am chronicling that experience here. This blog is not intended to be about retirement planning, but about the experience of retirement living.
I have entitled this blog “Stepping Into the Future” because I feel that I am stepping into my own future. I also feel that, as a leading-edge baby boomer, I am traveling a path that will, in the years to come, become the future of many other baby boomers to follow.
I am a single woman with no children, and the experiences I blog about will undoubtedly be shaped by gender, marital status and parental status. As I chronicle my experiences, I will use my training as a sociologist to reflect on those influences.
Please join me on my journey into the future.
Stepping Into The Future 
Hi Jean
What a miracle to find your website and read your article through Gokhlae Method Newsletter, which also was a miraculous finding when I was lying in bed for 3 months with a very bad sciatic nerve impingement leading to wild screaming pain. I am just in the processs of leaving my bed though not completely pain ridden and preparing to get back to work.
I just love your website and your concept. What a great idea ‘for stepping into the future’. I am not sure at what age one should retire. I also hear young people saying they wish to retire early yet I still see some who proclaim they have retired but are still working – I mean work to earn livelihood. In my case chronologically I should retire and also by the threshold for retirement as set by the government I should retire from my job but there is still option available to work for next 10 years or so i belive and therefore i hope to continue working.
I am saying all this because I am in the same situation as you and many otheres but I am still working in a job which gets me means for living. Lying in bed for the past 3 months and unable to do many things and with not many spirited minded friends to help and children living interstate and overseas I was thinking of somehow establishing a group of ageing people who are going through various issues and those- to quote you ‘Stepping into the futuer’. This idea is to help myself too as one can not expect or become a burden on children as they too are struggling with their daily lives as we did when we were young. I didnt have time to make friends or continue frienship with some.
I will be taking a lot of inspiration from you and your website. With the divine guidance I will be taking whatever little steps I can in this venture with a full time job and with the current limitations, which I will overcome soon
Meantime I will keep getting inspired by your website and by your enriching articles
With heartfelt grateful thanks to you for such a unique website
Bina from ‘Down Under’ – Sydney Australia
Bina, Welcome to my blog and thank you for your long comment. I had no idea that my article on back pain had been republished in the Gokhale Method Newsletter — which is no doubt the explanation for the sudden explosion of visitors to my blog!
I don’t know if you saw the March 2013 post I did called Why Retire Now?, which is an exploration of how people make the decision about when to retire. You may find it helpful in sorting out your thoughts. In my own case, I retired because my work (while very satisfying) didn’t leave enough free hours and energy for other things I wanted in my life, because that work kept me in a location where I didn’t really want to live, and because I had enough in retirement savings to make it work.
I am now about a year and a half into my retirement, and I have not had a moment of regret. My life is very full of interests and activities that I didn’t have time for when I was working. One of the best surprises has been a flourishing of new friendships, along with time to rekindle some old ones.
I love your idea of organizing a group of people in a similar position of transitioning into retirement. I have a similar group that one of my friends organized. There are four of us, and we get together for lunch once a month. We all worked for the same employer at one point and are all now retired. At first, we just compared notes on our retirement experiences, but after a few months of that, we started choosing a book to read and discuss each month.
I am so glad to have found your blog. I am a single woman with no kids, just recently retired from teaching. I was very interested in reading your friendship article after retirement. I have recently gotten in touch with my friends from childhood that live 3000 miles away. I would like to renew those old frIendships by moving back at least part of the year, to Ohio from California.
Cynthia, Welcome to my blog. I have found the rekindling of childhood friendships interesting. There are some with whom I was very close as a child that I have little in common with now, while I have found new rich connections with some old classmates that I barely knew when we were young. Good luck with rekindling your old friendships.
Loved your post. How do I sign up to continue receiving your blog please? Thank you.