Retirement. In which I go on hiatus.

This day has been a long time coming.

No, not my 8th grade graduation from St. Teresa's School in Sleepy Hollow, New York. That photo will forever haunt me (and send Mari into fits of tearful laughter). Thankfully, the less-than-fashionable glasses I started wearing shortly after the braces were cemented in did not make the photo session.

The day I refer to and that I am embracing today is my retirement. I thought I should take this blog-portunity (yes, still making up words) to pause and reflect... and to thank.

There have been many people involved in supporting me (often propping me up) these 29 years in education and, of course, in supporting me for the 22 years it took me to first become a working professional and a (mostly) functioning, contributing member of society.

The nuns, priests, and a handful of dedicated lay teachers at St. Teresa's helped me reach this day and helped shape my early moral, religious, and intellectual identity.

I am forever grateful.

I suppose I should probably start from the beginning, though.

There was a kindergarten graduation although I think the stylish mop-head posing here is smiling at us from our first grade school pictures snapped in the fall of 1972.

How I wish I still had that hair!

I don't remember a whole lot about kindergarten except I remember beginning school a few weeks after the regular Labor Day start, a few days after my birthday on the 16th because I had only then turned five. I also remember that first day hanging up my jacket in the cubby on the hook opposite Karen Weaver's because I thought she was very sweet and, of course, very pretty. I also remember being disappointed when I returned from recess to discover my jacket had been moved and Mrs. Einloth pointed out that the cubicles were labeled and in alphabetical order by last name. I would have to be satisfied with my jacket's placement a few hooks away from my kindergarten crush for the remainder of the school year.

Who'da thunk my love life would be foiled by someone else's OCD at such an early age?!

I was fortunate to experience kindergarten and the ensuing eight years of elementary school with the same group (family) of 20 students. There were a few students who came and went throughout our transformative tenure, but there was a core of us that began and completed those years together and that goofy metallic smile up there alongside that golden tassel (which I still have on display at home) is a result of nine years of enduring friendship and support.

Moving on to public high school was a bit of a culture shock, but great friends, dedicated teachers, and, of course, my quirky sense of humor helped smooth the transition.

Aime (at right) joined our little St. Teresa's family in third grade and we became fast friends. She was a constant source of friendship and support and much needed laughter all through high school as well. We met Angela (at left) our freshman year and I will always treasure this graduation photo of my two best friends taken on a warm June evening as the sun set on the football field of the Sleepy Hollow Headless Horsemen and on our halcyon high school days.

I hadn't expected my stroll down memory lane to necessarily involve graduation photos, but my rites of passage seem to have been measured with certificates and commemorated with ceremonies, so I am happy to revisit these moments and share them with you so many years later.

Five years after Sleepy Hollow came another ceremony and I'm so glad I found a photo with my parents.

We are standing at the foot of the statue of Father Sorin at the heart of the Notre Dame campus.

There are lots of stories and lots of moments leading up to this photo with Notre Dame's founder.

My parents were raised in a seaside farming aldea in Portugal. If you have read my previous Mother's Day and Father's Day posts honoring them, then you know how proud I am of their strong work ethic, their love for family, and their spirit of adventure. Without any one of those qualities I would not be who I am. This photo is the culmination of a life's work, my family's life.

Obrigado. Sempre obrigado. Para tudo.

Five years following my college graduation came a second graduation at Notre Dame. This time my parents traveled not from New York, but from their new Florida home where they had just begun enjoying their well-deserved retirement.

South Florida seemed to have influenced my dad to trade in his suit for a Member's Only jacket.

I confess I never expected to become a high school teacher and I know for a fact that was furthest from my parents' goal for me, too. I've previously told you the story of my major college major change after I had just about completed three years as an Accounting major.

In short, I experienced my mid-life crisis a bit early (at 20) when I realized that I'd be miserable albeit successful as the CPA I always imagined I would become.

My 1994 MA in Communication Arts was mostly "just for fun" but also allowed me to spend seven weeks every summer (for five years) surrounded by the nurturing and summer lush campus which had become so dear to me, especially as it had been the nexus of my relationship with Mari.

You also know the story by now of how Mari and I met then re-met two years later (after I had changed majors). Had I not suffered my mid-major crisis when I did and realized I had a calling to teach, I would never have re-met the woman who would become my wife.

I am always grateful to Mari for her support and encouragement throughout my career, but especially when I suffered a just-past-mid career crisis as I began my 20th year as a public high school teacher. I was looking ahead again, as I had when I was a junior in college, and realized I would probably regret not making a change before it was too late. For me, that change was becoming a school librarian.

Books and libraries have always been essential to my existence. You also know about my previously blogged relationship with the Warner Library in Tarrytown, New York and how much it shaped the student and individual I would become. My high school and college job at the library was much more than a job and when I realized I had an opportunity to become a school librarian and emulate and pay tribute to the role models of my childhood and young adulthood, it was an easy decision to make, even after 20 years in the profession and 15 years since I had last stepped foot in a college classroom.

Back to school I went.

No graduation photo this time because my previous MA allowed me to achieve certification on an accelerated path. Just in time, as it turns out. When the universe magically and poignantly placed me, a freshly-minted librarian, at the same high school campus I had grown to love for 21 years, I was thrilled to serve my family of teachers and staff in a new capacity, as school librarian.

That's the dedicated, talented, and lovingly supportive library staff I joined in August 2010. My sincerest thanks to my team members, my co-workers, and my dear friends for your hard work, loyalty, and love.

Mari and I began our careers in education together at Memorial High School in McAllen a few months after college graduation. Although she no longer teaches at my campus, Mari is aiming for an even 30 years with our district and will be working one final school year starting in August. Despite my self-diagnosed OCD, the "twenty-nine" doesn’t bother me (that much).  In a few years I’ll just round it up to 30 anyway when asked.

Although I had decided prior to the current school year that 29 would be my last, it never really felt like it was "real," that this would be my last year as an educator, a working professional. Even though I was following the process, doing what I was supposed to do, it still never felt like it was happening to me. I registered on the Teacher Retirement System of Texas website and requested a TRS retirement “packet” (which sounds a lot more exciting than the paperwork they actually mail you). After filling things out (which includes rolling the dice on how long you expect to live post-retirement so you achieve a balance between your monthly pension and your spouse's benefit upon your premature demise), getting notarized, then eventually receiving a letter from the superintendent of schools thanking you for your (29) years of service along with confirmation of your last day of employment, I still felt like it wasn’t really happening to me.

To paraphrase one of my personal and classroom favorites, it's been exactly like Holden attempts to describe in Catcher in the Rye when he's at his most justifiably agitated, that feeling "like you were disappearing everytime you crossed a road," only with me I kept expecting to walk into work and have everyone stare at me (as if I had forgotten to pull on my khakis or at least my signature argyle socks) and have my principal ask me, “You? You really thought you were going to retire this year? What a laugh!”

But then, about a month ago, I received my invitation to the district’s annual retirement banquet and my misgivings were (somewhat) mollified. The beautiful glass plaque commemorating my retirement after 29 years (the school district did not round up) is sitting temporarily on my desk at home until I can shuffle some collectibles around for this ultimate and very hard-earned collectible.

Having my photo snapped with the school board and superintendent of schools almost clinched the deal, I could just about confirm the legitimacy of my impending retirement, but then there was one final rite of passage which cemented things, cemented with frosting.

It isn’t until you have your retirement cake in the library and fight back

some sobs while giving your speech that you accept retirement.

I am fortunate that even after this past Thursday's cafeteria luncheon on our last day together as a faculty that I still have five more days to complete on my librarian’s contract. That time will help me to gather my belongings (and get my shit) together without interruption from the 100+ hard-working teachers and staff members (a few former students among them) who have surrounded me with their comfort, kindness, and support daily for the past 29 school years.

It still simply feels like summer vacation, though. It probably won’t be until that first “back to school” sale that dares rear its ugly head shortly after the 4th of July promotions have left the airwaves that it will feel right. Instead of that gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that makes me run to the calendar for the gridded reassurance of five full weeks of vacation remaining, I might actually browse a back-to-school ad and envision myself buying a bouquet of fresh pencils or a box of crayons or yet another Minions notebook.

On that mid-August day when teachers and staff members regather to ignore motivational speeches and to over-analyze student standardized testing data, I can sit back (safely sans khakis) with an extra cup of coffee and watch The Price is Right live, instead of via DVR.

I will probably feel retired the most on that first cool day in the fall which will probably be October (or more likely November around these parts), maybe it will be raining and still dark and our cat will jump into bed and start trying to wake me up for work like she always does, but I can just say, “Ahh, I think I’ll just stay in bed this morning.”

I will definitely feel retired that morning.

Although I have the utmost respect for my brother's personal privacy, I can't help but thank him in this public manner for standing beside me all these years through all these caps & gowns and all these transitions.

He is the person I have known and loved the longest, my entire fifty-one years. I could round that down to 50, but he deserves every last moment.

This is the two of us on our first adventure together.

Our first plane trip and our first visit to meet our grandparents and our Portuguese aunts, uncles, and cousins. At four and seven, we were each other's best friends and he was my first English teacher as only Portuguese was spoken in our household until he started school. Although I often thank Mari in my hypertextuals, I don't always have an opportunity to thank my one and only brother for all his love and support throughout these five decades that have helped me reach this milestone and become the person I was meant to be.

Thank you, Tony.

So begins my hiatus. I hope you will return with me in August, dear reader, when I would normally be getting psyched up for "back to school." I'll probably still be looking for bargains at back-to-school sales, but I will be taking a look back with you at my all-time favorite flea, the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, which Mari and I will be revisiting next week to celebrate my retirement and our 28th anniversary.

Another adventure awaits us in July as we revisit (after a 28-year absence) another old favorite on another coast.

More stories from flea to flea-ing flea next time.