Retirement……LOVE IT!

August 24, 2012:  My Journey Begins

Last May, 2012, I retired from a 31 year teaching career.  After submitting my letter of resignation to the school board in Novemer, 2011, the next several months brought inquiring comments from many people well-wishers.  Of course, the most asked question was, “What are you going to do when you retire?” (Now that is a novel idea: you have to DO something when you retire?!).  After being asked that question a number of times (too numerous to count!), I started wondering if I had made a mistake by resigning my job – a job I loved.  As the month of May last day of school approached, I HAD to begin to consider the answer to that question.  What WAS I going to do when I retired?

Since most teachers have summers off time away from their classrooms during the summer months, my first days weeks of retirement seemed like every other summer.  There was one exception; everywhere I went people were now asking, “So, how is retirement?”  How do you answer that question when it feels like nothing has really changed?  My response was always something about it feeling just like every other summer.  I filled my days with the normal summer activities (sleeping in, swimming, visiting family, cleaning out closets -UGH!) just like any other summer.  However, before I knew it, I was changing my calendar to August.

I began seeing vehicles in the school parking lots (I live in a small town, very close to the school).  My teacher friends were coming to school to get their classrooms ready for the beginning of a new school year.  It was beginning to “sink in” that I would not be going back to my classroom.  The hot, August days went by quickly, and before I knew it, it was the week that school was starting.  First there would be several days of teacher meetings and professional development seminars.  Then the students would arrive on Thursday. NOW I was beginning to  needed to was panick-stricken!  The question that I had been asked so many times had finally sunk in:  What WAS I going to do now that I am retired?

Throughout the summer I thought a lot about the answer to that question.  I have come up with numerous an overabundance of ideas of things I could do.  How would I choose what to do with my extra time new-found freedom?  I am embarking on a new and wondrous stage of my life.  I am finally excited about all the ideas I’ve come up with possibilities.  I hope to share in this blog through journaling and photos the things excitement I experience traveling along this new “road” of my life.

Won’t you join me?