Countdown: R Minus 4

During this final week of a 37-year career at the same school, I have found the job of readying myself for retirement to be both difficult and easy. There have been cupboards to clean, student work to pass out, paperwork to fill, progress reports to complete, and other elements of closure that have always been normal to the end of any school year. The beauty of knowing the person who will be taking over my post is that we can communicate about what it is she wants me to leave behind and what it is she would prefer I tossed. The ultimate beauty in this situation is when the person says she'd like you to leave everything. That said, I have taken her comment to mean I have the discretion to throw out anything I feel is too old or ruined. It has afforded me enormous freedom. People continually ask me how it feels to be retiring. And I tell them I'm not quite sure I know how it will feel. It's too foreign to anything I have ever experienced. I know I will have a strange sensation when I close the door and turn in my keys, but that is something that's commonly done. For the last couple of years we have had to turn in our keys in June. Prior to that we had kept our keys year-round but some people's keys were getting 'borrowed' and non-break-in school thefts over the vacations had spiked. Somebody was leaving their keys in predictable places where they were taken and then returned without the owner's knowledge. It's been weird to feel as if I am deprived of my sanctuary for two months. But the summers have been getting increasingly shorter and the time between turning in the keys and going in to pick them up has been shrinking. Today my principal told me he thinks the time I'll feel it the most will be when August comes and I won't be in a classroom putting up bulletin boards and unpacking my supplies. But I sense that if I have any feelings of emptiness at that time, I will also have great feelings of relief at not having my summer cut short. Teachers traditionally arrange to be on a vacation the first time school goes back into session after their retirement. I think I will be visiting my sisters. It's about the best I can do at this point in time. Being out of town can help me bypass any awkward feelings that may come about.