When July 1st arrived this year, it sort of slipped past me that it was officially the day.....until my husband Jeff said "Happy Retirement" to me that night. Hmmmm......summer for a teacher has always been so filled with down time, R&R, family visits, random days doing not much at all or doing all we can. So feeling retired in the summer just felt odd.
Even more unsettling was his wish to me, when I knew it was given out of love, but also with mixed feelings about this stage of our lives. Being the primary bread winner in our marriage is nothing new, but he was feeling like the only breadwinner and that can be tough to manage too! But we have worked our way through the many weeks since school got out, by continuing with the budget I set for retirement income and realizing not much (right now) has changed. Baby steppin' our way through it all for now. Together with God's guidance every step of the way!
I have also found many ways to make myself useful to Fischer Building Co. (FBC) with reconciling supplier quotes and charges (yes! saving him some money already) and pulling information together he usually would work on during the very late late hours of the night. This will be ongoing in my new role as his office assistant (still working on my official title.....).
As for ME......just ME.......I am making strides toward better health, literally. Walking 4-5 days a week and briskly too! Gives my mornings time to unfold before me and with energy high. A main goal is healing for my back - after a year of a herniated disc, which presses non-stop on my sciatic nerve. But we won't go there with blah blah blah about that, because healing is the operative word and I'm moving in the right directions so far! I have also taken on some new responsibilities with my Emmaus community and am excited to provide service to others this way. I have already read more books than I usually do the whole summer.....maybe because I spend NO time at all preparing for lessons, perusing websites, or thinking non-stop about teaching.
I am busy every day and looking forward to every day. As each one unfolds, I keep my blessings foremost in my mind and then gratefulness in my heart at the end of every day. A dear friend (thank you Mary Lambert) shared a phrase with me that she heard as she retired from teaching in NY and moved full-time to the OBX: "Retirement is merely finding ways to REcreate yourself."
REcreating......how exciting that sounds. I hope to embrace that as the summer continues and the Fall approaches.....my first in over 20 years of not walking into a school for those exciting days of a new year. I will find my new path........REcreating!
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