I’ve read guides that suggest we look at emotionally impactful experiences of our past and face them head on so we might better leave them behind. It can be both frightening and exhilarating to revisit our lives, both the failures and successes. I ended my career early as a whole, and now am contemplating taking some of it back. I have to know what I am going for in order to achieve it. I cannot expect my success to simply land in my lap. I need to provide a solution to my current situation, and give indication why my return is an ask, that I can back up with positive results. I’m speaking primarily as a theatre director, but am exploring the idea of moving back into the classroom if I could solely focus upon the arts.

When I quit teaching in the classroom, I felt disconnected everywhere. My marriage had fallen apart and I was considering how to move forward. I no longer enjoyed teaching English in the classroom. The standards are bothersome to me, and I was receiving a lot of pressure for things that were in my control but I was no longer interested in. I made the ultimate sacrifice of leaving my theatre program behind, but I needed a big change. My anxiety and my well being were both impacted by my divorce, and thereby retirement from my job as both a teacher and director seemed logical. 

In retirement I found a certain freedom, albeit too much time on my hands at first, but the reality of my new found exploration of my future felt intriguing. I moved into an apartment, and began to imagine myself to now become that writer I believed I was destined to be. I wrote a lot of poetry, and settled into book ideas. I started taking guitar lessons because I wanted to write songs. I attended three music camps that were entirely invigorating, but the problem remained that I could not play the guitar as well as I believed I should. So I stopped attending the workshop, but then also put my guitar down for a while, and now here I am. I’m looking at my guitar right now. Moving forward, I’ve been writing essays on a lot of topics as of late. I think my exploration is in motion.

Every day my plan is to write about what comes to mind as immediately as I can when I wake in the morning. Today, it is about visiting old skeletons and demons and finding a way to continue to move forward. I need not forget the wonderful pieces of my life, and instead, count on that validation in my life. So, let that examination begin.