Knock, Knock. I’m here! Let’s go play!

Remember when you were a kid and a special friend inexplicably drifted away from your daily circle of activities. They moved on to a different group or ‘better offer’ for a while. Then out of the blue, they would come back. Knock on your door as if they’d never been gone and expect to pick up where they left off. Did you let them back in? Did you make ’em pay for it somehow? Did you freeze ’em out?

I’ve been reminded of this recently in conversations with several friends struggling to deal with their long-standing partners’ sudden desire to get back in on their daily activities. Don’t misunderstand, they never split up, they just drifted in different directions. Over the years their partner just put all his focus on work and career. Assuming the relationship and closeness would take care of itself – read: stay the same.

In one case, where they have a distant relationship, after years of 24×7 singular focus on work, the partner is suddenly not very busy and the text message conversations are shifting from infrequent ‘tough meetings today – working late – too busy to talk tonight’ to a constant stream of ‘what are you doing? I miss you …’. Reaction?: ‘Excuse me it’s too late now. I don’t want to hear that now.’

In another situation, the loss of a close family member, again after years of 24×7 singular focus on work caused the spouse of several decades to suddenly want to get very close and intimate again. Reaction?: ‘I’ve been wanting this for years and years. I’ve moved on and figured out how to live without that closeness. It’s hard to change back.’

This same thing happens when you retire. Could be with spouse or friends or children. Highly likely if you were caught up in a steady diet of long hours, business travel, tethered to a blackberry and off-hours conference calls, even on vacations and weekends.  Many of us are that friend or that spouse or that parent who drifted away, who was absent. The day we retire, we want to knock on the door and go out to play!

All those times we answered calls, emails, invitations with ‘sorry ….. work …. blah, blah, blah’. We had good reasons we thought, but that triggered a distance nevertheless. They haven’t been sitting around on the sidelines waiting for us. They’ve pressed on. They had to. Good for them!

Our exit was most likely a long, quiet, drawn-out process. That’s exactly how our re-admittance will probably have to be. If we want to get back in with people we love, we need to be intentional and give everyone time to adjust.