It starts today!

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.  I know, I know, that’s an overused cliché.  Normally, it’s a meaningless maxim, but not today.  Because today IS the first day of the rest of my life.  On Friday, just one weekend ago, I ended my career as a teacher.  For twenty eight years I have spent winters in a classroom (nine actual classrooms in five different schools) and summers recovering, resting and getting ready for the next year.  This Monday morning has dawned differently, though.  I no longer identify myself as a teacher.  I’m not looking forward to the new challenges of a new school year and a new roster of kids.  I am not going to spend the summer praying for my incoming students even though I don’t know their names or faces.  (I am going to spend the rest of my life praying for the former students, though!)

Instead, today I am looking forward to a new kind of rest of my life.  Since I turned 60 last week in addition to retiring, I can estimate that I have somewhere between twenty and thirty years left on this earth, Lord willing, and I feel an urgency along with a challenge to make every day and every action and every choice count.  I am excited to see what God will bring to me in the next leg of this journey, and I am praying hard that I make it a priority each day to rise to that challenge.

Several years ago my daughter Hillary sent me a quote to encourage me about writing.  I have it on the bulletin board above my desk here at home, and today it has great meaning.  “I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.” – Jack Kerouac

How cool is this? I realize that every day since my birth it has been the first day of the rest of my life.  but yet, today I am standing in a completely different spot than I was on Friday. I am not naïve about aging, so I am well aware that what is ahead  will have its own set of difficulties, but that isn’t daunting to me – it is a gauntlet thrown down, a duel to face and win with courage and laughter.   I have in front of me today a span of time that is sparkling and clear and new.  I am standing on the top of a mountain – a difficult, trying as well as joyous and rewarding climb behind me – and I am facing a wild tangle of time and new challenges.  Bring it!