Last time, I told you something I'd never said out loud — that I don't really maintain casual friendships anymore. That if I want to be with my friends now, it takes effort, money, travel, and me being the one to pick up the phone first.
A lot of you wrote in. And what struck me wasn't just the number of comments — it was how many of you are grieving the same thing. The tribe you lost. The people who used to just be there, before retirement scattered everyone.
Today I have to be honest with you about something that might surprise you: I'm not building a new tribe. And I want to tell you why — because I don't think what I'm about to say is a failure. I think it might actually be permission some of you need.
Validating the Grief, Without Adopting It
First, I want to say this clearly, because I don't want anyone to feel dismissed: if you are genuinely lonely right now, if you're grieving the people who fell away when the structure of work disappeared — that grief is real. It is not weakness, and it is not something to just power through with a positive attitude. Losing your people is a real loss, and it deserves to be felt, not minimized.
But I also want to tell you something that took me most of my life to fully understand about myself.
I was never really a tribe person to begin with.
Where That Started
I lost my family young. And I think, looking back, some part of me understood early that I was going to have to carry my own weight — not just financially, but emotionally. My own happiness. My own steadiness. I couldn't outsource that to anyone, because the people I might have leaned on weren't going to be there long enough.
So I built a kind of self-reliance that started as necessity and, over time, just became who I am. Not a wall. Not bitterness. Just a quiet understanding that my own company was something I needed to be genuinely good at, because at the end of the day, I was the one who was always going to be there.
That's not a sad story to me anymore, even though it started in loss. It's just the shape my life took.
The Friends I Did Have
Here's the part that complicates the "I'm just independent" story, though, because it's not the whole truth.
I did have close friends. Real ones. The kind that took decades to build, who knew the long version of my life, not the highlight reel.
Most of them have passed.
And I haven't gone looking to replace them. Not because I don't believe new friendship is possible at 68 — I know it is, for plenty of people, and I think that's wonderful for them. But for me, there's something in me that hasn't wanted to do that work right now. Maybe it's grief I haven't fully named until saying it out loud just now. Maybe it's just that the people I had were so specific to me that "replacing" them never felt like the right word for what would come next.
So instead, here's what's actually true about my life: I like people. Genuinely. I'm not someone who's soured on connection. I just like people in limited quantities. I don't have the appetite for drama, for the maintenance that bigger social circles require, for the casual catching-up that used to just happen on its own when we were all working the same hallways.
What Actually Sustains Me Now
And here's what I want you to really hear, because I think this is the permission a lot of you might be looking for without knowing it.
My life is private now, and I like it that way. My projects sustain me — the beadwork, the writing, the building of things with my hands and my mind. Social media gives me a light, easy kind of connection that fits exactly how much social contact I actually want, without the obligation that comes with deeper friendship circles. I'm not lonely. I'm something different from lonely. I'm content, on my own terms, in a life I built specifically to fit who I actually am — not who retirement culture tells me I'm supposed to become.
Nobody tells you that's allowed. Every article, every well-meaning piece of advice about retirement says: get out there, join the group, build your village. And for a lot of people, that's exactly right, and I'd never argue against it for them.
But for some of us, the real work of this chapter isn't replacing what we lost. It's finally being honest about what we actually need — and stopping the performance of needing more than that, just because it's what everyone expects of us.
The Reframe for the People Still Grieving
So if you've been grieving the loss of your tribe — I want to leave you with this, gently.
I'm not telling you to want what I want. If you want a tribe, go build one. Go find your people. That instinct in you is real and it matters and you should chase it without apology.
But if some part of you has been grieving a "should" instead of an actual want — if the idea of building a whole new social circle exhausts you more than it excites you — you are allowed to ask yourself honestly what this chapter actually calls for. Maybe it's not rebuilding what you had. Maybe it's building something smaller, quieter, and more specific to who you are right now, at this age, with this much energy, wanting this much company.
This chapter doesn't have to look like the last one. The friendships I had were real, and I carry them with me, and I'm not pretending I don't miss the specific people who are gone. But I'm not interested in manufacturing a replacement just to look like I'm doing retirement "right."
I carry my own weight. I always have. And at 68, that's not a lonely sentence to me anymore. It's just true.
Some of us were never tribe people. That's not a failure — it's just true. I'd rather build a quiet life that fits than perform a busy one that doesn't.
What does this chapter actually need to look like for you — not what you think it should look like? I read every comment, and I'd genuinely like to know.
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