I Must Retire
Breaking free of all my duties
To just read and research the world,
To travel and navigate seas
That are for me in pages curled.
This has been my life’s desire,
So, teaching kids of all these things
Though great, from this I must retire
To float from here on angels’ wings
And to the mountains rest awhile
Or o’er the plains with birds to soar
Before it all into a pile
Is burned and I rest ever more.
January 2018
About This Poem
I wrote this two years before I retired, but I was clearly thinking about it and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. At that point I had met all my qualifications to retire but worried about paying for health insurance between then and 65. My plan was to go three more years, but COVID came along and changed those plans by a year (so, yes, I'm paying for health insurance now). Retirement from teaching has been great and I still hang out with my old friends who also retired. The photo is of me a couple of weeks ago on election day trying to encourage people to vote for our local schools. They did vote and the levy did pass. So, maybe I'm not fully retired from teaching?
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