Retired?

retire: verb
  1. leave one's job and cease to work, typically upon reaching the normal age for leaving employment.  synonyms: give up work, stop working, pack it in, call it quits
  2. withdraw to or from a particular place.  synonyms: go away, take oneself off, shut oneself away
In May, I officially retired from teaching preschool.  I suppose that at least one or two of the traditional definitions, listed above, apply to me.  I definitely stopped working at a job I had been doing for quite a while.  The state of Nebraska considered me old enough to draw some retirement income rather than simply resign.  I guess you could say that I withdrew from a particular place, school, to another particular place here at home, but I haven't exactly shut myself away.

I don't quite know what to say when someone asks me if I am enjoying retirement.  Apparently, my retirement is not at all conventional.  After all, how many other retirees still have children at home?  I don't have time to travel or catch up on my reading.  I really don't have time to retire from life!

My so-called retirement didn't really start until school began, when the kids went back to school without me.  Even though I'm not teaching this year, I seem to be just as busy as ever.  I still get up before 6:30 to get the kids off to school.  I walk part way to school with Levi on the days I don't have to drive Victoria across town to college.

When I am home, I am still trying to catch up with several projects that never seemed to get done when I was working full time.  Inside, I need to reorganize the files and clean the basement.  Outside, I need to paint two light posts and make mulch out of the pile of sticks that has accumulated this summer.   And, a good part of my new job description is that of taxi driver.  Every day, I take the kids to and from school, band, piano lessons, therapies, and wherever else they need to go.  I need to knuckle down and teach Victoria to drive, so I can stop being her personal chauffeur!

I've been writing songs, three since school started.  I've finished the outline for a book I plan to write.  I have some time, occasionally, to babysit for Tobin and Evelyn.  I'm staying up later than I like so I can help Victoria with college homework.

Giving up my job means that I have more time and energy to give the kids the attention they need, especially at the end of the day.  I still get tired, but I can take time for a nap during the day, if I really need one.

I learned long ago that the prefix, re, means again.  With that in mind, I've come up with a couple of different definitions for the word, retire.  

retire: verb
  1. become tired again, perhaps for different reasons than before.  synonym: exhaust
  2. put new or different tires on a vehicle again.  synonym: retread
You know what a retread is, don't you?  It's an old tire that is refurbished with new treads to make it usable again.  In a way, I'm kind of like a retread.  I may be doing some different things now, but God has equipped me with everything I need to keep rolling along each day, going where he leads me, doing what I need to do, for as long as I need to do it.

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