I retired in 2020. It had been six months since the death of my first husband, the father of my children, and eight months since I lost my husband. I had to admit a lot of changes had taken place and retirement was one more big adjustment.

I told myself I didn’t need any help, especially from a Dynamic Aging coach. But I also realized I needed help figuring out what would be meaningful with my newfound time.

With my coach, we explored volunteer work, starting a new business or finding part-time work. I told her about my dream to launch Vantage Point – a consulting firm I had fantasized creating once I retired, taking my 50 years of experience in Special Education and private, not-for-profit work and my years working for the State at the Department of Rehabilitation and sharing my wisdom and insights with others.

But I quickly concluded I was not willing to do anything that remotely looked like WORK. I didn’t want to have any kind of schedule where I HAD to be some place at a certain time. It felt a little selfish but I had worked from age 17 to 71 and I was just plain tired.

A good enough reason I felt. And it turns out I had some physical reasons to feel so tired. I was anemic and in 2022 was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis. That’s a long word for a fusing of the spine. The disease also causes fatigue and without intervention can lead to a stooped posture and problems with vision and the heart.

So my Dynamic Aging coach challenged me. “What will you do with your time?” she asked. Eventually it became clear to me I wanted to reach back in time and find people who had meant the world to me at some point in my life but I no longer had a way to connect with them. They may have moved or I may have moved (many, many times) or life went on and we just lost touch.

So the adventure began.

Google and my genealogical research skills led me to 10 possible matches of lost friends. I also wrote letters to people for whom I still had contact information but I hadn’t reached out to them in years.

Of the 10 Google searches and letters written and sent, three responded to me. I think that was a pretty good response considering I was reaching back in time up to 60 years.

Indeed, two of the people who responded to me I had known in high school in the 1960’s. The third person I had worked with in the 1980’s.

I also personally connected with relatives and friends who had previously only gotten a Christmas card from me once a year.

What I discovered is new friends are grand but there’s nothing like an old friend. It’s an absolute miracle to connect with someone you haven’t seen for decades and pick up your conversation like you saw them last week.

My friend Peggy was the first face-to-face reunion. We were friends in high school and we had spoken at a few high school reunions but we hadn’t spent any quality time together in decades. So I drove to Los Angeles (a four-hour drive) and we met at a 1950s style diner. That made it feel even more like we were stepping back in time. She told me of her life and I told her of my life and we agreed to get together with our mutual high school friend, Linda, in the near future.

Linda and I had intermittently stayed in touch since high school. For a few years we had talked about a trip to Alaska. The down payment was made and we committed to go in 2020 and then the Covid pandemic hit. During Covid, Linda’s health continued to decline. We did a smaller trip to Ferndale, California to see how she was doing. We had a grand time but I could see Alaska would be a real physical challenge for her. Indeed, in March of 2023 she passed away. I made the commitment to take the trip to Alaska in her honor, which I did in June 2024 at 75.

The next person I found was a work colleague whom I greatly admired. We worked together at an organization that served adults who had autism. That was back before autism was a household word. Now everyone’s “on the spectrum” but back then it was hard to explain what we did because no one knew what autism was.

She and I helped to deinstitutionalize six autistic adults and integrate them into the community. The organization’s primary purpose was to integrate them residentially, meaning find them housing in the community. We were charged with daytime activities for them. We tried to create a “normal” work environment, given the constraints of people who had behavioral issues before they went into the institution and had “institutional behaviors” by the time they came out. I was in awe of her and her vision, ability and kindness.

We reconnected at lunch in Santa Barbara. I could tell something was different about her, perhaps a little off. Still, we were able to talk old times and she told me about her son and I told her about my daughters. We kept in touch by phone call and text. Eventually it was only texts with an occasional phone call. The texts became difficult to determine what she was trying to say. I would answer as best I could, in hopes that I was understanding what she was trying to tell me.

One day I received a beautiful hourglass in the mail. It had purple sand in it so whoever sent it knew purple is my favorite color. But the package came with no return address and no card. A few months later I got a call from my work colleague and in the course of the conversation she asked if I got the hourglass. Oh, YES! I had and I loved it and was so happy to hear it was from her. She said it represented how fast time goes by and for me to think of her when I saw it. I promised I would.

A month or so later I got a call from her son letting me know she had passed away. He shared that she had been struggling with alcohol use disorder thus solving the mystery of her changed behavior and strange texts. He said he was calling me because I was the only number in her phone aside from his and other close family members. He thanked me for staying in touch with her even when it was hard to understand what she was trying to say. I felt some guilt in not figuring out her problem or, more, not intervening. He told me everyone had tried to intervene to no avail and instead of feeling guilty, I should feel good for remaining her friend to the end.

For almost all of my life I have worked. I have raised a family. I have been involved with clubs and organizations. It wasn’t wasted time but I wasn’t available to devote time to friends and relatives outside my immediate family.

Now I don’t work. Now I have no schedule that I must keep. I’m learning the purpose of my retirement years, at least so far, is to be available. I’m available for little miracles. I’m available when someone needs a ride to the doctor’s office or someone just wants to drop by and chat. To say yes, I can go to dinner, because I don’t have any plans. I have the time and energy to connect with friends and relatives – old and new. I have been blessed by creating deeper friendships with old friends and by “being there” for friends in need, new and old.

Old friends know you like no one else knows you. When years or decades have separated you, there is no blessing like filling in those gaps and truly knowing that person and their life as deeply as they know you.

New friends are great but you can’t make new old friends.