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Each position in the long and varied hospital career
of Mary Lou Santos, RN, prepared her for a next step.
Until the final step, that is.
From part-time staff nurse when her children were young
to float nurse and then a hospital home in obstetrics,
Santos' career was a logical progression of bedside
practice and administration. She became childbirth educator,
creating a program from scratch over five years before
making the leap to risk manager for 10 years. And then
the final step, the big one that no amount of success,
satisfaction or work experience could prepare her for:
retirement.
"I can't really explain how it felt," said
Santos, 64, of Bristol, R.I., of her retirement just
before Christmas 2002. "It was a sense of inertia.
I almost felt as though I really couldn't do anything.
I'm not a TV watcher, but I found myself watching TV.
I'm a reader, but I couldn't concentrate on reading.
I wasn't sleeping well, and I really wasn't tying it
up with loss, although
I think that's really what it was," she said of
not working. "It's not the kind of loss you feel
when you grieve over losing a loved one, but there was
a definite void."
She said she lived for months with the unsettling sense
that there was someplace she had to be or something
she had to be doing. "If I did go shopping, I'd
feel like I needed to be in a hurry, which is how it
was when I was working," Santos said.
That was despite some smart pre-retirement moves.
Santos said her advice to young and middle age nurses,
acknowledging that "middle age" occurs later
than it used to, is this: "Pay attention to your
finances early on."
"When you're young and bulletproof and you're
trying to meet everyday expenses -- thinking about putting
your kids through college -- you're not really thinking
about planning for financial security in retirement.
That is so far into the future. I don't think that I
paid enough attention to it when I was younger. But
when I got, I would say, in my 50s, I began to pay much
more attention," Santos said.
Santos had hoped to retire at age 62, but was caught
up in her community hospital's merger with a conglomerate,
which eliminated a benefit that paid for health insurance
coverage from early retirement to age 65. "So I
stayed until 64," she said, and even then retiring
"probably was the hardest decision I had to make
because I could have stayed and had my medical paid
'til 65."
Also at 62, the stock market was diving from it's meteoric
rise of the '90s, taking with it a portion of the funds
Santos had invested in her 403B, the IRS's version of
the 401K retirement savings program for non-profits.
Among Santos pre-retirement strategies was to test
the waters by cutting back to four days a week in her
final year and closely monitoring finances to see whether
she would be OK with less income and more free time.
The work remained about the same, though, because she
found herself taking it home.
"I'm not a rich lady, but I'm not uncomfortable
in any way," said Santos, who considers herself
fortunate that her home is paid for. "I hate driving
in the snow up here in the winter," she said, but
she traded in what she described as a gas-guzzler SUV
for a more-efficient four-wheel-drive vehicle. Furthermore,
she worked hard to eliminate credit card debt so that
she now has just one card for emergencies and travel.
It was time and travel that ultimately brought Santos
out of the shock of retirement.
She said that in April she visited a brother in Spain
and when she returned, the uneasy feeling of being out
of place was gone. "And now I'm really enjoying
my time," visiting four children, two of whom live
out of state, and pursuing her favorite music passion:
jazz at the Newport Jazz Festival and other festivals
in the Berkshire Mountains.
"I haven't been back to the hospital . . . I just
haven't wanted to do that," Santos said, but she
stays in touch with former colleagues by occasionally
going out to dinner or theater. "Sometimes we'll
just go for tea," Santos said.
As she retired, there were flattering offers to work
part time in other hospital departments, and "I've
also been called by a number of headhunters since I've
retired. They're offering me temporary positions or
consultation options," she said.
At a retirement party, Santos said the vice president
of nursing told her "I'm going to give you a year
and you'll be back." It hasn't been a year, but
"At the moment, I'm quite happy." A summer
full of plans include a trip to Ireland and an extended
stay in Florida.
Santos said a sister introduces her to others, saying
"She used to be a nurse." "And I say
'No, I am a nurse, but I'm retired.' I think nurses
are always nurses. I will always be a nurse."
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