Now what?

OK, it's official. I have retired. Permanently. I know full well I said the same thing last January, and then went back and taught four more terms. Well now I'm done. I was lucky enough to have a spectacular group of very smart and motivated students for my final class, so that made it easier, and harder. Ambivalence is coursing through my veins.

Yes, I will miss my students terribly, but there are some very good reasons for me to separate from my place of employment for the last 16 years, for instance:

The school has just hired the fifth Dean of the Faculty I will have dealt with since I started. Each one has arrived with a whole new style of communication, set of standards, and agenda for change. My adaptability has waned considerably over the years, so I don't think I would be ready to cave in to a new set of rules and regulations. In fact, I would probably fight them tooth and nail.

I am officially tired. I still approach each 4-hour lecture class with the same approximate level of energy and expectation I always have. In fact, I approach them with far more confidence and comfort than I used to. However, at the end of those classes I sit down at my desk and truly do not want to get up. After a few minutes, when I do uncurl myself into a standing position, it is difficult and rather painful, leading to a series of loud groans. I don't mind this when I am getting up from the sofa at home, as there is usually nobody available to hear me. At school, however, the halls tend to echo.

My patience has begun to fade. I still try my very best to be accepting and non-judgmental with my students. However, I have found that no one person has enough relatives to account for the number of funerals some need to attend, and I will not dismiss a young female from class for the evening because she has broken a fingernail, or is having a bad hair day. If a student's cell phone rings in class, I will answer it, and try very hard to embarrass the individual for whom the call was intended as well as the caller.

I am getting less adept at fudging my way through administrative tasks. I have always hated grades, and did really do my best to grade fairly and equitably, but I think the process leaves a lot to be desired, and my school's new computerized grading system leaves little room for flexibility. It does not understand the awarding of an "A" to a student who tries incredibly hard, but is not as quantitatively successful as his or her peers. It also does not know what to do with grades entered for class participation levels, usually expressed as a plus, minus, or check sign. It will only accept numbers. One of my favorite classes to teach was Public Speaking, but I haven't a clue why one student should get an 86 on a speech, and another an 88. I know an "A" or "B" speech, however, when I see one.

There is a massive difference of opinion when it comes to classroom expectations between the owners and top administrators of a small private college and the teachers employed by them. Those who can do teach, and those who can't, administrate. Anyone who has been a teacher at any level has my permission to agree with this statement. I won't tell.

Yes, I will miss my students, but you must have noticed I didn't say I would stop teaching, just that I had retired from formal education. I have already signed myself up to teach a couple of classes at my town's local senior center, and am looking for other opportunities. I have four or five drawings on canvas and wooden objects that are thirsty for some paint, and my writing needs lots of exercise. So I may have retired from one type of classroom, but as for others? I'm just getting started.

So vacate, already!

Here I sit, on the final day of my vacation, dreading the packing I will have to do tonight and the unpacking I will have to do tomorrow. When people plan their vacations, do they ever think of making sure their car will not be filled to the exploding point? Do they consider the possibility of packing only a few necessary items, or is it a rule of some sort that the amount you pack has some bearing on the amount of fun you will have while away? I seriously doubt it, but I do it anyway.

Every year I sit down and carefully make lists, planning exactly what I will need in the way of clothing, linens, food, medications, et al. Every year I bring too much, but forget something, and have to rush to the grocery store/drug store/ clothing store to fill in the inevitable blanks. We rent houses when we go on vacation, so I have to account for the things that I consider necessary and the original homeowner couldn't care less about. Like food.

This year it was a kitchen colander, or a strainer, as I had to explain to the non-English speaking young lady who helped me find one. She had been trying to tell me where the calendars were in a store devoted completely to the display and sale of thousands of varieties of plastic crap. I also needed a cutting board and a pizza cutter. I have lots of those things at home, but my landlord evidently doesn't strain pasta, cut up meat, or bake his own pizza. I found all of the items, for under $4.00. This is considered a victory.

Of course, now I have to decide whether to bring the new kitchen stuff home with me, or leave them so another renter can either destroy or swipe them. I swear that's what happened to the stuff I bought last year.
However, if I decide to cart home the new utensils, then I have to find room in the car and my kitchen when I get them back to my house.

A classic story from my family of origin involves a married couple of local professors (my Dad was a college administrator) who were coming to visit us one summer during a short vacation, and who showed up a day late. Their explanation was simple. The diagram that the husband had developed to pack their station wagon had not been successful, so they had to unpack everything and develop a new diagram. I have yet to decide if this was a good idea or just very strange. My family used to pack for vacation by stuffing a bunch of things into a bunch of bags, then stuffing the bags into the car. With any luck there would be enough room left for three kids and a large dog.

One year we bought a detachable luggage rack and piled everything on top of the car. We were about 100 miles into our trip when my brother noticed a suitcase in the middle of the road we had just traveled. Then another, then a couple of blankets. He mentioned this to my father, and we screeched to a halt and ran back a few hundred yards, retrieving our mangled vacation supplies. My current car has a roof rack. I have never used it.

History aside, I will struggle tonight to fit everything into suitcases and bags, then struggle tomorrow to load it all in, and then unload it one more time and put it away in its proper place, or somewhere close. Next year I know I will plan better.

The Reason Glamour Magazine has Never Called

When I was born and raised, back in the 1950's and 1960's, women were supposed to be glamorous. In fact, my mother insisted that I spend a few miserable months in charm school somewhere in my early teens. I learned how to walk, how to speak without ever really expressing an opinion, how to tilt my pinky finger when drinking tea, and how to appear glamorous at all times. The only thing I remember from charm school was how to tell what fork to use first. The rest is a distant blur.

Maybe that is because I was never destined to be charming. It has taken me quite a few years to come to terms with this, but now that my 65th birthday is fast approaching, I can honestly say I don't give a rat's behind. There. Was that glamorous enough for you? It was for me. As I sit here in my jeans, sneakers and t-shirt in front of the computer, I am totally comfortable with my glamour-free status. Here is how I have arrived at that conclusion:

I am sitting in front of my computer with the air-conditioner going full tilt, and I am sweating like a pig. There is nothing delicate or feminine about the way I perspire. I am soaked, with drips leaking from my ears to my shoulders, and my face is a fully reflective surface. My hair is kinky and damp, and showing no visible signs of a style. Glamorous women somehow withstand excessive heat, with nothing better than a handkerchief to dab at their moist cheeks. I need a bath towel.

I am long enough past menopause to be sprouting a few testosterone-fueled and very dark hairs on my chin. Not enough to spend thousands on a laser treatment, but enough to pull out a razor every morning and get rid of them before I scratch someone while doling out a hug. They are in direct proportion to the long white hairs suddenly appearing in the middle of my eyebrows. I swear they grow in overnight, from nothing to an inch or two in length, and sticking straight out as opposed to up or sideways. The hair on my head, however, seems to be getting thinner with every haircut. None of this seems very glamorous to me.

Also, my waistline has disappeared. I was never one of those hourglass-shaped lovelies, but at least I could wear a belt without it disappearing between two distinct folds of pudginess. Now I cut the belt loops off of my coats and sweaters. Maybe folks will think it's the clothing that drapes without an indent, and not the body.

I can not wear high heels. I had a grand old time back in the 60's and the 70's with my platform shoes and 5-inch heels, but just looking at what is selling in shoe salons currently makes my arches ache. I have my wonderfully comfy sneakers, and three different colors of my favorite walking shoes. None of those colors is chartreuse. There are two pair of sandals I can wear, one flat and one with about a one-inch heel. Even that feels risky. My balance seems to have disappeared with my waistline. I used to walk like a model. Now it's more like a Model T.

Makeup does not work on this face. I spend far more than necessary at my local cosmetics counter, but my attempts to achieve a "smoky eye" look more like an eye that has been firmly punched. My rosy cheeks are more likely from rosacea than from the correct color of blush, and any attempts at contouring look like I'm preparing for a football game in bright sunlight. Mascara is out. It makes my eyes itch. And I was actually trained as a makeup artist.

At some point I thought over all of these facts, as well as a few more, and decided that being glamorous just wasn't in my cards. I had a few minutes in my twenties when I could turn heads by walking into a room, but now it's probably because I have tripped over something. I think my most important accomplishments have not been based on looking just so, but more on what directions I chose to look. I was lucky to discover early on that glamour was pretty boring stuff, and had very little impact on the human race as a whole.

It's not that I look forward to being a frump as I get older, but I sure look toward continuing to make one big positive dent after another in the lives around me. I can't always look in the mirror and like what I see, but I sure do like who I see.