Retirement is Re-vision…

and requires a lot of coffee…

In December 2022 I made the big leap to retire after 24 years in education. I held many different jobs in the field, including English Teacher, Substitute Teacher, SAT Prep Instructor, Instructional Assistant (my last position), etc. I primarily developed my career around my family’s needs: having winters and summers off was a big plus when you’re raising children. Also, when I first started teaching English, I had (and still do) a passion for literature. More on that later!

I was a divorced parent and changed careers at 39 years old, attending night school through a district intern program to get my credential. To this day, I still don’t know how I managed my time and worked full-time as an inexperienced teacher, raised a son, and completed coursework. Eventually, I remarried, had another child and became a stay-at-home mom who took teaching side gigs to keep a foot in the door. Then my second husband passed away suddenly and I went back to work as the Instructional Assistant…a steady job that provided benefits, utilized some of my skills and was not too stressful. Ten years quickly passed and I’m remarried and an empty nester! So time flies when you’re having fun, raising a family, helping teachers and students, calming down anxious parents, maintaining a home, adopting pets and making ends meet.

I’ll admit I retired without a plan. People would often ask me, “What are you going to do?” and I couldn’t give them a genuine answer because I wasn’t sure. Travel? Sure! Sleep in? Yes! All I knew was that it was time. My patience level was low, my blood pressure was high, and an itty bitty voice inside me kept popping up saying, “Cheryl, you need to start something new, even if you don’t have a pile of money and have absolutely no idea what that thing is.” So, in other words, I listened to my intuition that was giving me a lot of mixed messages. Finally, I took the leap.

Retirement has been great! I love not having to call in sick when I have a headache or stomach ache, or worse, trying to get through the work day when I’m not feeling my best. As we have had a very rainy season here in California, I have enjoyed watching the rain from my cozy corner of the world. I spend more time with my husband and he has taught me to play cribbage, which I most often lose. I drink a lot of tea and coffee, take walks whenever I want (and not when the bell rings giving me ten minutes), meet friends, go to doctor’s appointments in the middle of the day for myself and other family members, hang with my grown children when the opportunity arises, and read a lot. (Watching cat videos is also a bit time consuming…) I also love to write and have been dabbling in different projects.

My first post-retirement revelation was that I have a mild case of ADD and completing projects I start is a challenge for me. I have about ten ideas I start and play with, and then I get sidetracked with chores and other responsibilities. I’m like a little kid this way being easily distracted. Now that I have more quality time, I’ve been listening to podcasts on this topic and am learning not to pressure myself so much. Focusing on enjoying the process more, positive self-talk and not feeling discouraged has allowed me to push my creative reset button. I know I had said earlier in this blog that I had no real plans when I retired but that is somewhat untrue — my dream of being an author was and has always been in the back of mind. I have just been a wee bit scared and intimidated to admit it! So there you have my big secret. Please don’t tell anyone.

As a child, I would lose my shy, insecure self in books all the time. There was a neighborhood public library where I would often check out my favorite genres: Egyptology and ghost stories. In Junior High I wrote ghost story after ghost story to the accolades of my English teacher, Mrs. Scott. She was the first person I remember who gave me the academic encouragement that turned into a lifelong dream.

One of my favorite projects so far as a “free” person is to create a library of all the books I have accumulated over the years. I bought a new bookcase, a swanky new velvet chair, two reading lamps, hung up some of my daughter’s paintings, and voilà a book nook was born! This entire project started one lazy day when I simply felt like tidying up a bit and started categorizing my humble book collection.

Many books I have donated, so this is not representative of all that I have read…but in cleaning out my bookshelves I had my second retirement “Aha!” moment: books are VERY important to me. In the day to day grind of life it’s sometimes easy to forget what speaks to your soul; books of all kinds (fiction, non-fiction, self-help, travel, memoir, cook books, you name it) speak to mine. When I realized how important this bookworm inclination was to me, a little window opened in my heart. I felt a lightness. Perhaps my intuition, which had been unreliable in its messages, was directing me to this path, after all.

That being said, one of my (too) many future pet projects includes more book reviews. Those reviews are pending after more reading, more writing, more time with family, my cats and coffee. I feel very grateful to be able to finally have this time to pursue my interests. As the famous poet Ranier Marie Rilke once said, “You are not too old and it is not too late.”

Speaking of Rilke, here is a book from my poetry collection, Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, that I bought in 1989 while in Paris at the iconic bookstore “Shakespeare and Company.” I found it easily after my stellar organization was complete! This book is a compilation of letters Rilke wrote from 1902-1908 to a young officer cadet (Franz Kappus) who was contemplating a literary career versus a life in the military. Kappus ended up staying in the military, though he did write, as well, in many genres. He did not achieve notoriety, however, from his writing. Sometimes our careers don’t necessarily take us to where we want to go; but I’m learning that it’s okay. It’s important to never give up. Writing, like life, requires revision.