The View From a Different Window: ~and I am so glad that I didn't stay that way~

8 years ago I retired from teaching. It was on this very date back in 2009 that I wrote a short and simple letter that would announce my intentions at the end of the 2009-10 school year. I was at a good place in time and found myself at the top of my game. 32 years of education in the state of Kansas seemed to be enough and at age 54, I was imagining what else life might have in store for me.

So in the very early morning hours of dark thirty on my 54th birthday that year, I stopped at the local Dillons back home in Hutchinson and picked up 3 dozen donuts. I left them at my school with a note to my friends there that I was taking the day off to celebrate officially retiring. Soon thereafter, I took my paperwork to the district office and spent the rest of the day celebrating life.

And then I wondered.

When school let out in May the following spring, I walked out the door. My sons picked me up at school to help me carry out what few things were left for me to take. I never made it past a couple of yards from the front door before I burst out in tears. I'll never forget that feeling, a combination of "I made it!" and "What in the world did I just do?"

The long story short of it all ended up being this. I only stayed "retired" for 5 months. In very early October I received a call from the principal at one of the schools in Hutchinson, one that I had taught at for a couple of years in the late 1990's. She had a simple question for me and it was one that took all of about 10 seconds to answer.

"I know you are retired and all, but I need a teacher right away. Would you consider coming back to help us?"

I said the only thing that a sane, retired too early teacher would say.

"Yes. When can I start?"

My 5 months of retirement in 2010 were ones that showed me just how much teacher was still left in me. I had actually applied to go to nursing school and make a late in life career shift. So after years of taking the prerequisites for admission, I was almost there. But right before I did the final paperwork, I realized something. I didn't really want to be a nurse and even though those in the nursing profession are at the top in my books, I wanted something more for me.

I wanted to be a teacher again.
And so that's what I did.

Fast forward to October 9, 2017. My life has changed tremendously since that infamous day of retirement. I ended up teaching in Hutchinson for an additional 3 years before getting married in May of 2013. From there I went on to Colorado where I taught for 2 more years in the mountain community of Olathe. In 2015, Mike and I moved to north Texas where I was able to spend a year teaching down the road a ways at Petrolia Elementary. Recently I received my Oklahoma teaching license and taught a year at Randlett and now am in my first year at the elementary school in Grandfield, Oklahoma.

One of the very important lessons that I have learned in all of this is that finally, I have become the teacher that I was meant to be all along. It's not that I didn't consider myself to be a good teacher for the many years that I taught before 2009. Had I considered myself any less than that, I would have never stayed to begin with. It's a difficult feeling to explain to people, truly it is. But these days I teach every lesson each day with the feeling that it could well be the last time I get to teach it. When you are a 62-year old teacher, there really is no guarantee that your job will be there in the years ahead. I feel great health wise with a heart and spirit that still loves so much what I am doing in the classroom each day. But yet I carry with me the realization that I'm only one serious health issue away from having to retire for good this time.

I'm not ready for that.
And so I stay healthy as I can and pray for one more time to do this.

It's the early morning hours here. The clock on the wall says 4:05 in the a.m. Save for the sometimes rustling about from Sally the Dog, I'm the only one awake. Across the Red River into the state of Oklahoma there are 10 children sound asleep in their beds. In a few hours more they too shall awaken and join me for another day at school in the second grade. I know we will have a good day.

Yes I would admit there are some rare occasions when I sit back and think about what really retired will look like. I guess I wouldn't mind taking a nap right after lunch or wandering about the house in my pjs until mid morning. But for now, I am doing what I was destined to do from the start and you know what?

I'm happy.