On retirement

and what comes after

It has been almost 4 years since I took early retirement from teaching, and it has flown by. In that time, I’ve had to deal with the illnesses and loss of both parents, some health issues and a whole load of soul searching. If I’m honest I was terrified of the future without teaching. I’d come to a place where it defined who I was and how I lived my life. Teaching was everything and all else was built around it. Then it stopped. I cancelled my GTCS (General Teaching Council for Scotland) registration on the first day, set a match to it and moved on.

I can look back proudly on 22 years of classroom teaching, but I don’t miss it a bit. There were so many amazing experiences. Editing a school magazine, being a slightly manic stage manager on several School Musicals, taking countless busloads of students to some glorious theatre performances: I couldn’t have asked for more from a career. But, if I’m honest with myself, I was exhausted with it all.

My everyday life is still based on checklists and post-its – that’ll never leave me – but for the most part that life is firmly in the past. I suppose teaching taught me to cram my life with things to do. It’s just that now I can leave stuff out if I want. I still start every day with a to-do list but sometimes that cup of tea in bed at 8 o’clock replaces everything when I can hear the wind or the rain outside.

To be honest, if I still enjoyed teaching, I’d still be doing but I didn’t. I didn’t want to hate it, but I could see it was in the post. I enjoyed it until I didn’t: I was good at it until I wasn’t.

Before retiring my wife and I talked about what our lives would be like if and when it happened. There’s no point if you don’t have some kind of a plan.

So, having been told at the age of 12 that I was hopeless at music and shouldn’t bother – a lovely Music teacher whose face has stuck in my head for a lifetime - I began piano lessons and love every second of it. I practice at home every day and am almost getting to the point where I can play a tune. My new life is set to music. It is so incredibly exhilarating.

On other days my wife and I get up early and just get in the car and drive, with a flask of tea of course. We’ve seen so much of the Ayrshire coast and its wonderful to be on a beach at 11o’clock in the morning, remembering how much stress I used to be under at that time.

I know I’m very privileged, very fortunate to be in my position. Retirement from teaching was merely the end of one phase and the beginning of another. And, while I gulp sometimes when I realise I will never work again for a living, I never take for granted the life I have now.