She also started volunteering, initially serving meals at a veterans’ shelter. “That got me out of my funk,” she said. “You’re working with a whole bunch of volunteers on projects so you see these people on an ongoing basis, and you feel like you are a part of something.”

Now she tutors people learning to speak English. “I’m both student and teacher at the same time,” she said. “I learn so much from them about their culture and customs and experiences here in this country. ”

Adjusting to Change

Retiring is a sequence of shifts over time, as Ms. Rhoton has found. Three substantial changes take place, said Ken Dychtwald , founder and chief executive of Age Wave, a consulting and research company.

“For most of the changes in our lives there is ritual,” he said. “I n high school, when you contemplated college, you go visit campuses. There’s counseling. When it comes to retirement, people are basically told ‘good luck, have a good time.’”

The first big change is identity. “Whether we realize it or not, we have our identity linked to our work, and the way we describe ourselves, how we introduce ourselves, and what we might say if we are sitting next to someone on a train. Our identity has been forged and tweaked and shaped by our work life .”

In addition, relationships change. “When we asked retirees in a study, conducted by Merrill Lynch in partnership with Age Wave, what do you miss the most, way at the top of the list was the relationships,” Mr. Dychtwald said. “They didn’t realize how much they would miss the person whose desk was next to theirs, or whose office, and asking about their kids and all of those things.”

The third shift is activity. “Most of us, until our retirement day, have lived our lives in a structured lifestyle,” he said. “ You retire, and all of that is dissolved. For some people, that’s a kind of terror. They feel that they are in a state of free-fall. Others see it as freedom.”