To Retire or not to retire....that is............

Slowing down is a scary thing especially for a person who has spent her entire life devoted to multi-tasking.  I came by this propensity honestly. I vividly remember as a child my mother whizzing by like the energizer bunny with a pile of dirty laundry under one arm while pushing a vacuum cleaner with the other.  She never seemed to sit down for more than five minutes at a time.  At dinner I recall her standing by the stove during dinner as the six of us sat in a small kitchen at a small table eating the meal she had quickly prepared after a full day cleaning other peoples houses.  The six at the dinner table each night included four children, an alcoholic husband, a live-in alcoholic grandmother so there wasn't much time for my mom to relax.  She worked full time and cared for others  when she got home for many years.   The children moved away, grandma died but my mom continued working until she died at 69.

My mom sent me out to work part-time when I was 15 and except for a four month maternity leave I have kept my working career going for nearly 50 years now.  When I retired from my job teaching in Minneapolis at age 55 I quickly learned I was not retirement material.  My mother's DNA was too hard to fight and I went back to work subbing in Saint Louis Park until Harry and I went to Mexico where I taught for two years.  I returned to subbing regularly since we returned from Mexico three years ago.

I find myself hitting the wall with regard to teaching.  The truth is I cannot imagine at my age of 62 working full time to age 66 as most people in this country must do.  I have had some minor health issues and have cut back to subbing a couple days a week finding those two days more than enough.  Lucky me, most people my age have to just keep going five days a week.  Not teaching so much feels so great right now.

So, I have been fashioning a new life of sorts and things are going pretty well.  A little blessing named Archer came in our door last week.  He is two years old and his parents and our friends, Krisit and Tony, need a little help as they had twin girls born prematurely at the end of January who are still in the NICU for another month. The girls are doing very well and they are hopeful to bring them home in April.   After Kristi and Tony left Archer with us last Saturday night he began unprompted to call us grandma and grandpa.  We decided not to correct him.  He came again Friday and will be coming for a few more weeks on a a regular basis.  We enjoy him so much!

Last week I was subbing in a second grade classroom in St. Louis Park and there was one of those words of wisdom calendars on the teachers' desk.  The calendar wisdom for the day was: "Retire when your sorrow at leaving the classroom is smaller than your joyful thirst for new adventures."  As a believer in fortune cookies I of course took this message very much to heart.