This essay first appeared on my Substack, where I write about life, art, and purpose after my career years. You can read it below or visit my Substack to subscribe for future reflections.
Four years after retiring, I can still remember counting down the final days of my career. It was bittersweet. Part of me felt like a bird in a cage, waiting for the door to swing open. The other part grieved the loss and wanted to stay in the cage.
At eighteen, I had chosen not to go to college, believing it might interfere with God’s plans for my life. Instead, I married young and became a stay-at-home wife and mother. After twenty-one years, that marriage sadly ended in divorce.
I had no choice but to build a life with my own career, identity, and stability for myself and my children. At the age of thirty-six, I went back to college to earn a degree and teaching credential. I felt so old, years behind everyone around me. Looking back now, at sixty-four, I see that I was still young. But at the time, it felt like I was joining the race long after everyone else.
Retirement forced me to let go of a security and identity that had been mine through fourteen years in the classroom and five more as an instructional coach. My career as an educator had given me purpose and a place for my nurturing to land once my children were grown. As much as I loved my boys, I’d always known their first steps would lead away from me. They both sought independence early, chasing freedom almost as soon as they could name it.
My career had offered stability and a kind of family among colleagues. I built that life through persistence and hard work, and it was mine. Letting it go and flying out of that cage was harder than I expected.
After retirement, it felt as though a huge part of my identity had been quietly amputated. I had remarried a wonderful man, a true partner in every way. Still, I couldn’t expect him to be my everything. And I knew I was a child of God, but I kept asking Him, “What is this child supposed to do now?”
And then something unexpected happened.
One morning not long after the last day of my career, a yellow bird landed on the patio outside my window. She looked directly at me and tilted her head, as if to say, “It’s okay…new things are coming.” Then, just like that, she spread her fluttery little wings and flew off – quick, sure, free.
I began to paint again. What started as therapy became a passion. Brushes, color, and canvas gave shape to what words couldn’t. Eventually I threw myself into all things art – teaching, creating, exhibiting, sharing. I had flown through that cage door, feathers ruffled but intact.
My husband, a retired aerospace engineer, found his way back to graphite pencil drawing and joined me in this creative chapter. We spend many days painting and drawing side by side in our little studio, or finding new ways to share our love of art with others.
It turns out the bell was never the thing that gave my life rhythm. It was the steady pulse of creating, learning, and beginning again.
I sometimes have anxious dreams about work – rushing to the classroom after recess or realizing I’ve missed a coach’s meeting. Then I wake and remember I no longer live by the bell. The world is quieter now, but in that quiet, I’ve found a different kind of purpose. A purpose not bound to lesson plans or titles. I’m free to choose my own course, to create, and to fly off when it’s time to move on.
About
This reflection is part of an ongoing series on life, art, and identity in the years after full-time work and active motherhood. I write about what it means to keep creating – to shape purpose, beauty, and belonging in this unfolding chapter of life.