Defining a Mid-Life Retirement

The goal of our Mid-life Retirement was to spend a year traveling, and throughout that journey figure out where we would want to settle back down and start the next stage of our life, which includes careers for both Erica and I and school for the kids.  I never thought about the fact that a mid-life retirement might have multiple definitions until someone recently told me about theirs. One that they took a few years ago and which looked nothing like what our's did.  It made me think about all of the writing I have done about the topic and how I should build a definition. 

I have googled Mid-life Retirement so many times over the past few years in search of inspiration and direction, only to be let down by the lack of content. Their is no wiki page, or businesses geared toward the topic. You will find tons of information on early retirements and humorously a bunch of stuff on mid life crisis'.  It really is a unique concept in these regards.  

My experiences talking with people while on this journey has proven to me that it does and has existed for many people. Many people spend time away from their careers in the middle of life and many do so deliberately, not just a product of a layoff or leave of absence.  They were brave to take control and exercise agency in their lives at a time when they were faced with great uncertainty.  But ours was unique in one major aspect, I have yet to meet a married couple with kids that has attempted what we have.  I have heard from people that know friends who did what we have, so in-fact, people are out there doing this.

For me a Mid-life Retirement is defined as a proactive, planned absence from work in the middle of a person's life for any duration of one year or longer. "Mid-life", as defined by Wiki, is from age 45-55. For the purpose of a "Mid-Life Retirement", mid-life is the period of our lives after consistently spending your first ten years in the work force and before ten years from permanent retirement. What it is not, is a long term retirement or a mid-life crisis. The person must have every intention of returning back to their career or another career of full time employment. It could be used to avert and/or transition through a mid-life crisis and in so many ways becomes therapy for the soul when you take one. 

Peace and Love