What I Left Behind

Messenger binged. I took a quick look to see a stranger’s face. Curious, I opened it and learned it was from a former student. The year was 1971. She texted that I was a “great teacher,” and she just wanted to say “hi.”

Beginning teachers....

I wanted to text her back and explain that I was not a great teacher. I learned much of the material the night before the next day of school and wrote it out on index cards because I was not knowledgeable or glib enough to wing it. On many days I was terrified the class would eat me up and spit me out for their simple entertainment. Instead, I messaged her back with “Time does fly, and so much happens between the then and now. Hope life has been good for you.” And, it started me thinking of my own then and now and what I left behind and am still leaving behind.

After forty eight years of marriage, raising four children, twenty seven years of teaching—some on the wrong side of the tracks and some in special education, running a day-care out of my home, fearing we would not have food on the table at the end of the month, worrying about a child in another state having an allergic reaction in a motel room and all alone, etc…. you get the point. I don’t want to go back; I don’t want any do-overs. The first time was difficult and while difficult, also worthy in shaping me into an adult who is less naïve and yet more compassionate and understanding. An adult, who is less thin-skinned and one who has developed a sometimes wide-ranging sense of humor.

After retirement, I became a writer (thanks to my writing group I can say this and not feel inadequate or funny or weird). When the books came out, one by one, I would grow anxious, wondering if I was misusing scripture, offending anyone, or making typos, or writing like someone who had no business writing. I would check the ratings, check the reviews, and get tied up in things I could do nothing about—that is if I really wanted to write what I was called to write about.  Well, let’s say, I’ve grown. I’ve left some things behind, again: things that needed to be taken off my shoulders; things that needed to be erased from inside my head.

I choose to write words and send them out into the world and hope they find a home somewhere. For some, my words come across as negative, intense, not worthy of their time. That, is okay. I like suspense and mystery in a story. I also love scripture. So, I use all three. Some readers prefer to read about quilt-making, romance, or history. That is okay, too. What others think of me or what I write about is their business.

Getting older isn’t half bad. You determine that a person only has so much time left, why not be you? I want to be sillier, I want to laugh more, I want to dance when the mood is right. I have left behind some of what I used to consider proper. I am free-er, I am stronger, I am more at peace.

Erich From wrote, The whole of life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed we should be fully born when we die.....  hopefully, with what I’ve left behind, I'm on my way to being "fully born."