Reality Orientation & Adjusting To Retirement: It’s Thursday, Jerry!
Is reality orientation really the best way of adjusting to retirement?
A while back, I wrote a post called, Matt Damon Went to Mars? It was about a nice lady that I met on a flight down to Costa Rica. The woman commented on how much she had enjoyed the movie I was watching, The Martian. Naturally, I agreed, and we started chatting. It wasn’t long into the conversation before she shared her thoughts on how difficult it must have been for the cast and crew, and poor Matt, to make that movie.
Especially since they had to go all the way to Mars. I laughed. But she kept going on about the logistics and time away from their families to make such a film. Honestly, I thought I was on Candid Camera (being punked if you’re under 45 and reading this) and that any minute she’d laugh and say, “gotcha!”
I tried once, kindly, and said that I was pretty sure it was filmed on a soundstage somewhere. She agreed…a sound stage on Mars.
Then, yesterday someone who had read that post asked, “Why didn’t you just correct that woman on the plane?”
As I said, I actually did try. And then that reader’s comment got me to wondering, why didn’t I try harder to convince the plane lady? Then I thought, who am I to burst her bubble? Worse yet, what if she gets really pissy because she thinks I’m arguing with her…it’s a five-hour flight to Costa Rica. Who needs a crappy, angry neighbour for that long?
Or what if the movie was just so darn realistic, and that’s just how she processed it? So at the time, I thought she was just a fascinating person, with an interesting point of view.
It was the reader’s comment that gave me the flashback to Emergency/Trauma Unit nursing in a downtown Toronto hospital.
It reminded me of Jerry.
So, back-in-the-day, when I was on a day shift, two policewomen brought in a homeless man who had recently been released from a downtown mental health facility.
He was wearing both handcuffs and manacles.
And he was screaming, at the top of his lungs. “Where’s My Mother?!” Over and over he said that, and not much else. Severe agitation! The chap was barefoot, wild-eyed, wearing filthy scrubs, hadn’t bathed or brushed his teeth in God knows how long.
The screaming, and all that hardware, and the two-cop accompaniment, are enough to tell any seasoned ER RN that Jerry was “going to be a handful.”
Big downtown hospitals are often teaching hospitals. This one was. So the resident on-duty in the ER that day, fresh-faced keener that he was, was there immediately to start “helping.”
The resident believed that his first order of business was “reality orientation.”
That’s when you try to “help” a confused person understand their surroundings, the time, place, etc.
The doc kept explaining, Jerry, it’s Thursday.
You’re at the hospital.
What medication do you take?
WHERE’S MY MOTHER?
It’s Thursday morning.
When were you last in hospital?
WHERE’S MY MOTHER?
You get the drift.
This went on for about five minutes. Jerry got more agitated, so did the two police women, and so did I.
Finally, I interrupted Doogie Houser and asked Jerry what happened to his right toe. Jerry turned to me and shouted that:
“LIGHTNING’S BEEN SHOOTING OUT OF IT.”
And before the doc could finish saying, “No, Jerry, it’s Thursday, and you’re in the hospital…”
I turned to Jerry and said, “That’s a bitch when that happens, isn’t it?”
YEAH, IT’S SCARY TOO!
“Totally! Jerry, that’s awful. Do you know what happens if that goes untreated?” Jerry shook his head. The two police women started to smile, and the doc looked more confused than Jerry.
“Spontaneous human combustion,” I said. Then I offered to take a look at it and help him with it.
From that moment on, he putty in my hands. I gave him his meds, cleaned the wound on his toe, even showered and fed him. The doctor reported me to the head nurse, a former Canadian Forces field nurse who’d served overseas; she just laughed.
So, to land the plane, that lived experience is probably why I didn’t see any need to push the plane lady back into “reality.”
Over the years, I began to notice that people rarely need someone to explain their lives back to them immediately.
They need someone willing to understand where they’re standing before suggesting where they might go next.
I think the retirement transition is much the same. Our Monday-to-Friday culture spends an awful lot of time telling retirees what they should do next. And, in fairness, from their vantage point, they are sincerely trying to be helpful when they say we should:
Travel.
Volunteer.
Start a hobby.
Keep busy.
Stay productive.
None of those suggestions are wrong. They’re simply someone else’s version of life after retirement.
It’s a little like the young resident insisting, “It’s Thursday, Jerry.”
But perhaps our new reality isn’t something we discover by sitting still and trying to think harder.
Perhaps it emerges through participation.
Through ordinary Tuesdays.
And strange conversations.
Through trying a few new things, amongst your favourite old things.
And having the occasional boring afternoon; and through getting some of them wonderfully wrong.
Maybe adjusting to retirement isn’t about having our “reality oriented” before we begin. Perhaps it’s about orienteering instead.
Not knowing exactly where we’re going, but trusting that we can find our way by moving through the landscape.
Related Reading
If you enjoy following ordinary observations that turn into bigger questions, you might also like:
- The Science of Why Retirement Feels So Strange
- Why the First Trip After Retirement Carries So Much Weight
- Can You Miss Work, But Not Miss Working?
- Retiring Feral
- The Story Gets Better Every Time
Research Note
The observations in this article are informed by ongoing reading and research in psychology, sociology, adult development, aging, friendship, purpose, identity, and life transitions. While these essays are observational rather than academic, many of the underlying ideas are grounded in established research.
- Bridges, W. (2004). Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes.
- McAdams, D. P. (2006). The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By.
- Lugones, M. (1987). Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception.
- Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-Determination Theory.
Cynthia Ross Tustin is the founder of I'm Thinking of Retiring, an online publication exploring the psychology, purpose, and everyday realities of life after work. A retired Fire Chief, former ICU and Emergency Room nurse, instructor, and policy writer, she combines lived experience, research, and a lifelong curiosity about human behaviour to write thoughtful essays on retirement, identity, purpose, friendship, and the ordinary moments that quietly reveal something larger. Through her Retirement Field Notes and Ordinary Tuesday series, she encourages readers to approach this next chapter with curiosity rather than certainty.
