Release and Relinquish

I’ve been officially retired now for almost three weeks. However, it really does not feel like retirement yet; it feels like summer vacation. Of course, that’s what it is to my still-working colleagues. I keep reminding myself that this wonderful schedule of getting up around seven a.m., leisurely preparing for the day, having opportunities to make business calls during the business day (rather than trying to remember to make those calls between 3:30 and 5:00 p.m., or before 8 a.m. if the business is in the eastern US), and actually having sovereignty over my own day will continue for the rest of my life.

But, when my colleagues have to return to work, will I still feel the same bliss? I have given this some real thought. I taught kindergarten in the same school for all of the twenty years it has been in existence. I feel very much as if that kindergarten is “mine.” I was very instrumental in giving it the structure it has now. My kindergarten colleagues who will continue to teach there have every right to re-structure things (within the confines of No Child Left Behind, of course). And I have an obligation to keep my opinions to myself – an accomplishment that my family and close friends know does not come very naturally to me. It is not at all unlike raising one’s children to adulthood, then letting them go out into the world to live their own lives, making their own mistakes, and suffering the consequences of, or reaping the rewards of their own choices. I must release. I must relinquish.

The releasing and relinquishing will be easier because of my plans to keep working with children and literacy. It might be volunteering at the public library. It might be “hanging a shingle” and beginning a tutoring service. It might be volunteering as an “intervention tutor” at the school from which I just retired. It might be a combination of all three things, or something as yet undiscovered. Whatever the future holds, I intend to grab on and enjoy the ride. In the process, I intend to help enrich the lives of children and their families. Bring it on!