Today is the day. The end of an era. Not a very long era, really—either eleven or fifteen years, depending on when you start counting—but an important, a significant, a meaningful era, at least to me.
Today is my last day of actual work in my school district.
Paraphrasing what an acquaintance said, I'll be (hopefully temporarily) joining the ranks of the Gentlemen of Leisure.
My contract term runs through June 30 and my health insurance is good through August 31, but my days of showing up end today. And while part of me is excited, thrilled even, part of me is very sad.
I've served the young people of the Antelope Valley for fifteen years. I've seen former students of mine become parents, activists, even colleagues. I've watched (and I hope helped) them grow. I've been "Papa Negaard," "Cobra Commander," and a host of other things to young men and women.
And today it ends.
Today I say goodbye to my last class—a group of kids some of whom I've known for three consecutive years—and it's going to be tough. I love my students—even the annoying ones, even the difficult ones, even the defiant and challenging ones—and saying a final farewell not just to a group of kids I love but also to the job which provided me the opportunity and context in which to love them (and hundreds of others) is...painful.
Oh, I'm excited to be putting the toxic elements of my job behind me—grownup drama, mostly—but...I will miss serving the kids of the Antelope Valley. Sure, I hope to be serving other kids in a new place, but those kids won't displace the kids already in my heart; my heart will just have to expand to make room for them.
And it will. I know that it will.
If everything goes as planned, at 12:35 P.M. I'll be throwing a leg over Hermes (my Harley) and hitting the road for a purely-symbolic long distance ride to figuratively put the nastiness of my soon-to-be-former position in the rear view. That'll be a time for cleansing tears. When I arrive home, I expect to be...I don't know: resigned, refreshed, determined, ready.
Just another step. Another step.
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