Geronimo!

Since I was five years old, my routine has included buying school clothes and supplies in the fall, anticipating Christmas break, praying for snow, and counting the days until school ended.  First as a student and then as a teacher.  Now I am retiring.

What I will miss most is the energy that being with young people generates.  Their complete engagement in the life they are living.  Their smiles, their tears, their laughter, their ah-hahs!  It's been such a privilege to share in my students' whimsical, unpredictable growth.  So, considering whether to retire from something I love so much soaked up much thought and prayer time.

In three days, I will no longer have a classroom.  I’ve always believed that everything has a season and I’ve had this feeling for a while that my season of daily teaching was drawing to a close.  I don’t know what God has in store for me as I move into the next phase of my life.  I know I would like to be a published children’s author.  I don’t want to be self-published, I want an agent and a publishing contract and I am very aware of what a difficult dream that will be to achieve.  There's a greater than average chance that I will fail.  But, I could succeed.   So, I am stepping off of the structured platform of predictable  chunks of time regulated by bells and lessons into the thin air of unstructured time and days marked only by the rising and setting of the sun.   Thank goodness I practiced all of this letting go when I went zip-lining with my sister.  When I talked to her about retirement, she counseled me that whatever I choose to do,  I should do  it with gusto.  She's right, so here I go. Geronimo!