Retirement: Withdrawing from my profession? Withdrawal into privacy or seclusion? Seclusion from the world? I'm not completely comfortable with any of those definitions. I will always be an educator, even if that never again involves an institution of learning. Privacy has become something of an illusion in our information age, and it would be disingenuous to pretend to crave privacy while posting a blog. Likewise, seclusion from the world hardly seems possible or desirable, no matter how much I enjoy my moments alone.

    I am beginning to see retirement as simply the next chapter in my life. I have already recorded many chapters in my life story, so one more seems rather natural.  The most-asked question in response to my announcement of retirement is, "So what's your plan?"  I don't have a plan, and I don't feel at all bad about that.  Why can't I just prioritize my concerns and interests, begin pursuing them and then see where the journey takes me?  "Besides," I tell those would-be joy snatchers, "I've earned this summer vacation, so I don't really begin retirement until all the little mush heads start back to school in the fall."

    I do feel some internal pressure to chart at least a general course.  I don't want to wake up some morning and realize I've wasted a couple of years of my life.  But it's a challenge to decide how I will choose to spend my time. There are so many options: genealogical research, hunting, exercising, caring for the house and yard, teaching biblical truths, finding more and better ways to relate to my children and grandchildren, photography, traveling, reading.  I'm passionately interested in all of these things, a requirement for life's decisions as far as I'm concerned. I am a little nervous and quite excited to begin figuring it all out. 

    So, that's what I plan to record in this little piece of cyberspace.  I predict this plan will be slowly changed as I consciously or unconsciously decide to change emphases.

     My first random thought:  Why can't I press the tab key to indent a paragraph?  Isn't that what a tab key if for?