I was forced to retire early or be faced with possibly being fired, and I knew that I wasn’t ready to retire before my friends. I then decided to retire early with disabilities. I began to embrace the idea of sleeping in late and spending more time with my sons.  I started to see the possibilities. I began to enjoy the time off to spend time reading books as well as getting projects done in the house.

My sons and I went many places like going to the movies and then I began to realized how I could even do my shopping during the week days. I was so surprised how much traffic there was during this time though. I wondered why more people weren’t working because I never noticed this before now.

I became very upset about how I left teaching. When the next school year began, I began to feel empty inside. Teaching wasn’t just a job. It became my identity. I taught for 15 years and I felt I had found my niche.

What was I going to do with myself? I had to reinvent myself again.

I decided to volunteer at a Hospice Hospital after meeting a man on a flight while visiting to see my sister in Georgia. This man told me he was on hospice going to stay with his son. He was telling me about his life and I was able to make him laugh. I jokingly told him “ Are you coming on to me? I am a married lady. His face lit up.

This gave me the idea to volunteer as a Hospice Volunteer. It was an interesting experience for me, but it was too sad to do for an extended period of time so I stopped after several months. It did give me some needed knowledge about being in a nursing home in the future that I certainly don’t want. If I have another fall on my head that could happen so I try to always be careful!