As a mystery writer I was a big fan of the TV series CSI, and the soundtrack is deeply embedded in my brain. For those of us who remember either the series or the 70s, it's nearly impossible to read the question above without hearing Roger Daltrey demanding "Who the f*** are you?"
When I need some inspiration, this soundtrack is often on my playlist. Especially that theme song!
I was thirty when The Who released this album, and my answer to the question then centered around my family and my job. I was a wife and mother, a student who had returned to university after my kids were born, and the bookkeeper for my then-husband's engineering firm.
Now, as a retiree the question sits front and center as I contemplate the formation of my new identity, demanding an answer.
I left school years ago, and though I am still a mother my children are grown and on their own.
The business we owned then died many years ago, even before that marriage did.
Even the job I held for the last 21 years is now in the past.
So who am I now? A retiree, sure, but - at least for me - that is not nearly enough. Retiree implies who I was, not who I am right now, in this time and place.
Even a fortune teller can't predict who you will be. But you choose who you are and who you want to be in retirement.
As I said, this isn't a new question. We ask ourselves the same question in hundreds of little ways every day of our lives, and we answered it every day by our actions and the roles we played.
Until this moment. Until we walk away from those easily-defined roles in the workplace, there was always a safe, easy answer; I could always tell people I worked in the accounting department of a resort on the Oregon coast.
The job had its perks. I took this photo from my desk, two days before Christmas last year. 53 days to retirement, and the chance to re-define who I am.
I am not, was not, an accountant with a degree and certification, and I never claimed to be. My exact title was Assistant Controller, and the job encompassed a variety of duties. I could describe my job in a few words, and it gave strangers and acquaintances a handy role in which to place me.
I am no longer that person. In truth I haven't been that person, that role, for most of those years - or at least I wasn't only that person - but it was a safe way to label myself for public consumption.
I have always had trouble calling myself a writer. Other people were writers, I just hung out with them and sometimes I put some words on paper. Yeah, whole lot of baggage there.
Besides that, there is the ego-bruising exchange that always seems to accompany that revelation. "You're a writer? Have you written anything I might have read?" The reaction, the one you swallow, is to ask how in the name of all that is holy I would know what you might have read? Instead, you smile and shrug - and maybe ask what kind of books they like to read. So many times the answer is something you wouldn't write in a million years (never say never, you don't know what might come along) and you're left lamely replying that no, they probably haven't read any of your stories.
Really, who needs that?
Much easier to identify yourself by your job title.
Now that job title is gone, and with it the handy identifier that you have been using for years. Yes, you can just say "I'm retired," but like I said above that feels like who you were, not who you are.
Now is the time to decide who you want to be when you grow up, and then be that person. No, you're not going to pitch in the majors at 65 if you haven't picked up a baseball in fifty years, nor will you - well, what can't you do? As I was writing this sentence I really couldn't think of very many things you couldn't do if you really wanted to.
I may never have a 100-mile-an-hour fastball, but I can still play the game if I want to!
Learn to fly? Why not?
My friend, romance writer Susan Grant, shared this picture from her "office." She wanted to learn to fly, now she's a captain with a major airline. Oh, and a New York Times bestseller!
Become a fashion model? There are women in their 70s who are modeling, and they're in demand because some designers have woken up to the fact that the market includes women that age.
Study law, or economics, or physics? There are classes available in every community college, university, and graduate school for those that want to learn something they didn't get a chance to when they were younger.
The creative life is for anyone who wants it, and there is so much more time and freedom to create when the pressures of a day job are removed.
Your identity is yours to shape in whatever way you want.
Decide who you are, and don't be afraid to let the world know.