What's Going On Here?

 


As the end of my 35-year career in education approached, I began to get questions from the colleagues I would be leaving behind. Most were too kind/polite to ask the obvious (out loud, at least)–“What took you so long?”–but many, who knew how completely I embraced my work, wanted an answer to the Big Question: “What will you do now?”

Without a schedule to follow, a curriculum to cover, a problem to solve, I would be “free,” but that freedom would require me to fill in the blanks, to find meaning and purpose in whatever remained of my life. Yikes. Celebratory retirement parties, adequate financial resources, and all my friends’ best wishes notwithstanding, this was a sobering reality.

My basic response to sobering reality is almost always laughter. In this case, Mr. Peanutbutter’s philosophy works pretty well for me.


On the other hand, I am not a Labrador Retriever. Like Diane, I feel an undeniable urge to find or, more accurately, make meaning in what I know to be a meaningless world. So, in the spirit of keeping my options open, I begin this last leg of my life journey with an actual journey–a road trip across the country. Do I expect to Find Meaning in this month of travel? Of course not. I expect to find new: new sights, sounds, smells, tastes; new challenges; new limitations and solutions. I expect to find a little more about me–who I am, what I am capable of, what I want, what I need, what being me means now.

This blog will be a place where I record and reflect on my experiences. I hope to find time and internet access to do that as I go, but this is all new for me, so who knows? If you’d like to check in on my progress, please do. In the meantime, pax et bonum.

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