Retiremint

Continuing the previous conversation…

The only other time I ever heard the big “T” (as in Tired) word spoken filled with that much unspoken meaning, as I referred to in the previous post, the word was spoken by my mother, dying of lung cancer.

“I’m tired,” she said, in a way that expressed not despair or resentment, but peaceful resignation to reaching finite limitations—of being truly exhausted—and knowing it!

“I’m tired,” she said, not apologizing for her resignation, but expressing a calm, reasoned, and honest explanation to why she was looking forward to joining her husband and other family members who had predeceased her.

(Unless death comes quickly/unexpectedly to me, I imagine someday I will know my mother’s kind of tiredness, also.)

For now, I am getting un-tired, grateful that there is no immediate trauma or difficulty that keeps me from unwinding; grateful for the chance to be renewed in strength; grateful for a chance to live a different kind of life on the other side of the retirement date milestone, until I am called to account for this life and to enter into a different kind of living retirement.

And I am grateful, too, that my mother, who worried that I worked too hard, is part of this retirement decision—I am confident of that!

On a day that was chosen for me (not by me), the first steps toward fructifying my decision to retire took place at a counseling retirement meeting on the sixth anniversary of my mother’s natural release from the tiredness of this life.

I believe that in the heavenly economy, retirement, like on this side of heaven, doesn’t mean an absence of work, but a different kind of work. I believe my mother is still at work in my life.

Providential. Reassuring. I believe I’m on the right path. Forty-three days and counting down to retirement.

It never ceases to amaze me that every book printed in English—no matter how thick, no matter many pages or how many words– can be reduced to this common denominator: just twenty-six letters, albeit arranged and rearranged, used multiple times, over and over again.

Amazing, isn’t it, that the letters we learned to read and write, letters we likely first learned to sing from the A-B-C (“alphabet”) Song, the basics we learned from our mothers or other teachers, equipped us, ultimately, to unlock even the most complicated written ideas!

One word of particular interest to me right now, forty-four days till retirement, is the seven letter word retired.

What caught my attention in looking at that printed word–with new eyes, no doubt–is a word of interest within that word.

Have you noticed, too, that embedded in the word retired is the word tired, which I do believe, describes how many of us feel on the cusp of retirement?

In fact, as tired as I have been at the end of any given workday or any given workweek throughout my long employment life of multiple careers, “tired” never had the same meaning as it did leading to my retirement decision.

Perhaps it was the cumulative effect. Perhaps I reached a tipping point, a critical mass, of sorts; whatever it was, I finally understood what a colleague meant when she explained her retirement decision in two words, “I’m tired.”

I’m that tired, too.

If you have known the “tired” that produced the decision to become retired, what had become most tiresome?

I admit it. I’m still mining the implications of those three little words “accepted and approved,” as in resignation/retirement letter signed, sealed, and delivered.

Since my resignation/retirement applies to education, I’ve been thinking about “accepted and approved” as it applies to teaching.

“accepted and approved”

If parents and guardians were asked to articulate what they hoped for from their children’s teachers, I suspect that “acceptance and approval” for their children might be high on their wish lists.

Acceptance. Admittedly, it’s easier for children—all children—to be and feel more accepted these days due to anti-harassment, intimidation, and bullying laws, which teachers are obligated to ensure and enforce.

Approval. This one is tougher. Students often act differently at home and at school. Parents and guardians sometimes have a difficult time believing (or, maybe, admitting) that their children exhibit unwanted, unacceptable behaviors.

Yes. Parents and guardians have the responsibility to protect their children. But protecting them from the truth or needed interventions, including disciplinary actions, is not a healthy protection.

Every child needs to be accepted and approved as unique individuals worthy of respect, no matter what their age, but their behavior needs to worthy of approval.

And, I’m thinking that no matter how old we are, the child in each of us needs and wants acceptance and approval, too.

“accepted and approved”

Whose/ what kind of acceptance and approval do you seek or need?

Am still reflecting on my resignation having been Board “accepted and approved.”

First “a” word sounds welcoming and hospitable—could as well have been in response to my applying for the job, rather than resigning.

Second “a” word sounds like it could be a product endorsement—or the okay to my being hired—the second step in the employment process.

Wish “accepted and approved” had been a testimonial on my employment performance. You know: contributions gratefully accepted and approved.

Too much to ask for. I know…

As a “reduction in force” consultant once explained to us when we faced continued RIF’ings (and I’m paraphrasing): The company is not your father. It’s not here to take care of you. You work. You get paid. Don’t expect anything more.

Same is true in this case: I worked; I got paid. The privilege of serving and being paid for it is reward enough.

But the applicability of the phrase “accepted and approved” to both ends of the employment process–applying/being employed and resigning/being unemployed–reminds me of something a wise manager once counseled me:

If you’re thinking of leaving a job, you need an “exit plan.”

“What’s your exit plan?” he asked me.

My shrug and confused look prompted an elaboration.

“You had a plan to get the job, didn’t you?…You need a plan to leave the job.”

“Retirement planning” in the way of finances, I suppose, fits the manager’s advice. But only partly.

A relevant, workable “exit plan” needs to take into account more than that—don’t you think? We’re a total package—mind, heart, body, spirit.  There’s more to us than just our finances, agreed?

What’s your employment exit plan to retirement? It’s never to early–or too late–to get a workable plan!

It’s official! The Board “accepted and approved” my retirement!

When I read the email notification to that effect, I smiled, peacefully and joyfully.

In rehearsing the moment, I expected to do a combination victory and liberation dance.

I imagined I’d spin around, jump up and down, and even pump my fists a couple of times.

Not so.

While I wouldn’t change my decision; while it is time, there was—and maybe always will be–a part of me that feels a certain sadness, too, reflecting on those three words.

It really is over. My retirement has been: “accepted and approved.”

In fewer than fifty days, as of August 31st, I no longer am a full-time employed educator.

Regardless, I’ll always be an educator, don’t you think?

Like it or not, in the school-without-walls called life, we all are witting or unwitting, willing or unwilling educators of sorts, aren’t we?

No miracle of streaming video last night, so, here I am today, hoping to learn from our HR Department what I did not hear or see with my own ears and eyes last night: the acceptance of my resignation-for-retirement-purposes letter.

Assuming all went well and I am good to go, all there is to do now is to survive till Sept. 1^st, and I will officially enter retirement. Hooray!

No doubt about it; I’ve been thinking a lot (more) about life and death since submitting that resignation-for-retirement-purposes letter.

Prior to this weekend, I was thinking it was probably a safe bet that I’d live to be officially retired, despite the fact that 33/240 high school classmates have already passed on.

Then came Saturday’s bombshell. One of the neighborhood “kids” I grew up with, went to elementary and high school with, learned to sleigh ride with, took the local bus each day to high school with, just died July 3rd.

Now I know how a female relative felt every time she “freaked out” (my words, not hers) when she learned another retired contemporary had died.

Truth be told, she admitted once that she feared no one would be left standing to attend her funeral. …Turns out she was almost right. When she died at ninety-five, only one—younger–contemporary of hers was there to cry.

Who is or isn’t at my funeral doesn’t bother me, per se. The idea that no one would be praying for my eternal rest: that bothers me..a lot!

Getting back to my classmate. Today would have been his and his wife’s forty-second wedding anniversary. Burying your husband the day before your anniversary—that has to be heart-wrenching. Today and every day, I hope she finds consolation and peace.

Tough stuff. Another wake-up call.

September 1^st seems so close, and yet I’m not making any presumptions. Despite the seemingly good odds, I’m not placing any bets.

I’m cleaning out… big time. I’ve updated my will, too. …One day at a time. Today is Day 48 and counting till retirement. One way or not, I plan, as best I can, to be good to go.

How about you?

Definitely not the superstitious type, having my resignation-for-retirement-purposes letter go before the Board tonight on the thirteenth of the month does not freak me out.

In fact, being a bit of a nonconformist in matters such as yielding to superstitions, I’m actually feeling very lucky that my resignation/retirement will get the thumbs-up tonight.

Wish me luck!

As always: Thanks!

Today marks the eighteenth birthday of Malala Yousafzai, one courageous young woman, youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and tenacious children’s advocate.

Whoever would have thought that her life on the other side of the globe would have anything to do with my retirement? But it does!

Like most of my colleagues across the country, I’d regularly bought books–from my own pocketbook, as they say–for my “school kids” to add to their library collection–minus donated stickers or fanfare.

Based on my students’ interest in reading more about her life, purchasing three biographies of Malaya Yousafzai were an exception.

Planning on working another two years, but recognizing that my “plan” might become abbreviated, I made simple donated stickers with my name for those three biographies I had purchased for my students, who had grown to admire Malala, as I had done, also.

Those three biographies are the only books with my name inside them–the only three visible signs within our multi-thousand book collection that I ever was part of the students’ library—or their lives.

And, although I added first-time donated stickers with my name, it doesn’t even matter to me if not one student ever notices or cares who donated those books.

I know, and I care. I couldn’t think of a better gift to leave my students than the story of the inspirational life of Malala Yousafzai.

If you care about the world’s children, particularly the girls and young woman regularly deprived of a formal education, please consider gifting Malala on her birthday by supporting the Malala Fund, including its Books for Bullets program http://www.malala.org

I know it’s the least I can do in return for the gift she has made of her life in support of the world’s children—and the adults who care about them.

Selfishly, I am grateful to Malala for the gift she unknowingly gave to me—to be able to retire having stood up for literacy for all the world’s children, admittedly in a small, but hopefully not inconsequential way, by adding to our students’ collections of books the story of her courageous young life.

Please keep up the good work, Malala! God bless you. And thank you!

It’s the week after our Fourth of July celebration, and I’m still pondering the meaning of retirement freedom and independence. In fact, I’m pondering it even more so since yesterday’s post.

Although I was not willing to do the “far, far better thing” by vacating my position a few years ago for someone I knew, haven’t I done the “far, far better thing” now, by retiring, albeit for someone as yet unnamed, someone, ostensibly, I do not know?

Could I not have selfishly held on to the job, stuck it out, determined, as long as I was vertical, never to leave?

And, truthfully, no matter when the decision to retire takes place, isn’t there always some measure of sacrifice, whether intended or not?

In the final analysis, isn’t our Social Security System meant to encourage, to incentivize, if you will, the voluntary “far, far better” sacrificial retirement described yesterday, offering– instead of a fixed number of weeks of unemployment insurance benefits–a lifetime of pension paybacks for a prior lifetime of income deductions?

To a very small point, incentivizing retirement reminds me of “There Were Ten in the Bed,” a children’s nursery rhyme movement song, in which the overcrowding felt by the “little one” is remedied by the successive rolling over and falling out of the bed of the other (presumably “older”) ones.

Incentivizing retirement makes openings, allows us to give up our place, to make space for the youngest ones to have a chance to work; hopefully, allowing us to land on our feet, or at least cushioning our fall out of bed, not making us hitting our heads, like the five little monkeys, sung about in another nursery rhyme.

Isn’t that a marvelous gift of being an American worker? Although the Bill of Rights does not name “freedom to work” as one of our rights, isn’t the assumption that we can choose to work the basis of fulfilling our signature “American dream”?

So, incentivized retirement, it seems to me is gift for both generations—for the “new [working] generation” to whom the “[productivity] torch” has been passed, in playing off President Kennedy’s famous Inaugural words, as well as for the “old” generation, for those retirees passing on the torch.

And as I ponder what American freedom to work really means, I realize that depriving people of that human and humanizing gift to choose how to spend their gifts and talents in the service of self and others through earning a living is a terrible thing suffered in past generations, as well as today, here in America and around the globe, based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, or creed.

For the freedom I have had as an American woman to labor (and to rest) and now to rest (and to labor) in this great country is a blessing that I am only beginning to truly understand, and therefore to appreciate.

To the person who assumes the position I have surrendered: God bless you. May your labors bring you much fulfillment, and when the time comes for you to surrender the position to someone else, may you be at peace and experience fruitful rest.

How does “freedom to work” resonate with you? What are your thoughts?