Choices

This is my first blog.  "What's the topic?" you ask.  I answer, "Retirement, fused glass, being a mother and grandmother, education, writing, and topics I have yet to pursue.

First, let me say how I came to my career because that will eventually lead to my choice of topics.  My parents could not afford to pay for college; so, I earned a small scholarship.  Still, two years was what could be managed financially.  I enrolled in a two-year business school program at a small state college.  Long ago that meant I was on track to be a secretary.  I was ill-fitted for this program.  My mind would wander in my business classes making my shorthand unreadable and my typing equally bad.  In order to keep my scholarship I had to promise the college I would get out of the business program.  Where could I go, though?  I should mention that I was fired from a temporary job at a company where my mother worked.  It was summer, I was in high school, and I insisted on correcting my boss's misspelled words.  I was also fired from a job later as a long distance PBX operator after I pulled out the plugs on my board.  A man on the phone had been quite rude to me.  Then, I was hired to stock shelves at a Woolco store and quit on my way out at the end of the day.  I was bored.  My employment history did not show a promising future.  I think my parents were worried.

About the same time I promised the college I would drop my business major, my freshman English teacher paid me a compliment.  He said, "You should make English your major."  I was giddy with joy.  Some department wanted me.  Besides that, I liked to read.  My parents and I were puzzled, though.  What do you do with an English major?  The short of it is--I became an English teacher.  After teaching for several years, I took the advise of my principal.  By the way, he said, "Why don't you become an administrator?  You would be good at it."  Once again, a compliment drove my career choice.  I should have, perhaps, considered that I was shallow, but fortunately I did not.  And, as with Frost's "The Road Not Taken" that "has made all the difference."  I loved being a principal.  I was never bored, I saw great teaching daily, I made a difference in lives, and as a bonus some thought I was good at my job.  It was also a plus for teachers of English everywhere that I became an administrator instead of remaining one of them.

Thirty-four years after my stumbling into education, I decided it was time to retire.  Friends and colleagues can be quite frightening when one decides to retire.  What would I do with my time?  After all, I not only worked nine- to fourteen-hour days but I enjoyed doing so.

Here's the short version.  They were wrong.  I love my retirement as much as I loved my career.  Why?  I have thought about this question frequently.  I decided the answer is "choices."  When I was pursuing my career, I made one choice--education. Once I chose education and the longer I stayed in that profession, I could no longer be a famous actress, a renowned anthropologist, a marine biologist, or an award-winning war correspondent. I thought about Grammy-winning singer, but I cannot carry a tune.  Now that I am pursuing retirement--yes, "pursuing"--I am making many choices.  I am a mother, a grandmother, a fused glass artist, a novelist, a poet, a writer of children's stories, a landscaper, an interior decorator, a technology geek, a traveller, a volunteer and consultant for schools, and whatever I decide to become tomorrow. 

So, the subject of my blog is "the road not taken."  I have retraced my steps and begun walking this road.  I will write about fused glass, authoring a book, education, motherhood and grandmotherhood, retirement, and whatever I may decide tomorrow. 

Check out my website at http://smithtm.weebly.com/