One of the true quirks of teaching is that you work in a world in which everyone is 16 or 17 every year – year after year – until you retire. In your first year of teaching they are all 16 or 17 and then years later they are still 16 and 17. This is especially true if you are, like I was, a bit of a hermit and kept in your classroom most of the day seeing only students. It is spooky to work for years and never see them age -as if they are frozen in time.
Which, of course, means that YOU feel each and every aging moment along the way. They are fixed in time, but YOU are definitely not! Now that retirement has hit, I am hoping the reverse is true. Sharing coffee hour at the local Dunkin’ Donuts during the middle of the day you certainly don’t find anyone close to 18. Perhaps in this crowd I will stop aging – or at least feel more comfortable aging with them. Perhaps . . .