Please Don’t Call Me Retired

After 30+ years as a healthcare and senior living design knowledge expert, writer, and marketing consultant, I’ve decided to stop working.

But please don’t call me “retired.”

When you work for a company, there’s usually some kind of ceremonial send-off into retirement—perhaps a gold watch, a heartfelt speech, a sheet cake in the conference room, or a nudge out the door disguised as a “voluntary early retirement package.”

But when you’re a consultant? No one’s cutting a cake in your honor. You just kind of… stop.

Or don’t.

Totally your call.

My Passion for Healthcare & Senior Living Design

For more than three decades, my work has been a big part of who I am. I’ve had the extraordinary good fortune to spend my career exploring how the design of the physical environment impacts health and well-being—and then writing, speaking about what I learned.

I’ve interviewed brilliant architects and designers, researchers, healthcare leaders, senior living innovators, and more than a few people willing to challenge conventional wisdom. I’ve attended countless conferences; walked through hospitals, clinics, and senior living communities; moderated panels; given presentations; written articles and blog posts; and helped organizations figure out how to tell their stories. (More about my journey, here.)

Along the way, I made wonderful friends.

And perhaps most importantly, I got to help shape the evolution of healthcare and senior living design to focus on the human experience.

Knowing When to Leave the Party

I loved what I did.

But I also like the idea of not doing it.

There wasn’t a dramatic moment when I decided I was finished. No terrible client meeting. No final straw. No voice from above saying, “Sara, it’s time.”

I simply began to realize that I was more curious about what came next than I was interested in continuing what I’d already done.

Part of what comes next is also taking care of myself.

Over the next eight months, I’ll be having a few surgeries. Nothing life-threatening, thankfully, but enough to require some time, patience, and attention to my health.

They’ll also keep me from attending the Healthcare Design Conference this fall—something that feels a little strange after so many years of showing up, reconnecting with old friends, meeting new ones, and finding out what everyone has been working on.

For years, my calendar has been shaped by deadlines, client work, speaking engagements, and conferences. Now, for a while at least, it will be shaped by healing and recovery.

And I’m okay with that.

Because taking care of my health isn’t an interruption of what comes next. It’s part of what comes next.

And there’s a whole list of things I want to do post-work.

I want to do more storytelling on stage. Finish the novel I’ve started. Write more personal essays. Continue to play my sports. Travel. Read more books. Explore Chicago. Take classes or go to lectures simply because something sounds interesting. Go to a movie in the middle of the afternoon.

And so much more.

The Next Part of the Hero’s Journey

I’m also inspired by Arthur C. Brooks’ take on retirement. He writes that our careers are like the hero’s journey—full of dreams, sacrifices, struggles, and glory.

But if we cling too tightly to past triumphs or refuse to let go, he warns, we risk turning our epic into a tragic sequel.

Instead, he encourages us to enter what he calls the “personal crucible”—a time for giving back, loving well, and setting an example for those still in the thick of the hustle.

That sounds pretty great to me.

Hero’s journey, part four: Serve. Love. Inspire.

One Last Thank You

So, as I close this chapter of my professional life, I want to say thank you.

Thank you to everyone who hired me, collaborated with me, read what I wrote, invited me to speak, challenged my thinking, shared an idea, introduced me to someone interesting, or simply stopped me at a conference to say, “I love your blog.”

You gave me a career that was far more interesting than anything I could have imagined when I started out.

I’m proud of the work I did. I’m proud to have been part of a community that kept asking how we could create better places for people to heal, live, work, and age.

This website isn’t disappearing. Many of my articles, research, interviews, and other work will remain here as an archive for anyone who still finds them useful.

As for me, I’m not disappearing either.

I’m just changing what I write about.

There are still stories I want to tell. They’re simply not going to be about healthcare and senior living design—but rather about the strange, funny, difficult, beautiful business of being human.

So no, I’m not retired.

I’m just getting started.