Goodbye Existing, Hello Living

As I walked away from school today for the last time, a little voice said, 'Now the really hard work begins,' and I thought, 'Oh, oh,' and had to stop on the way home in a little tea shop in town to have a pot of tea, a slice of cranberry and orange cake and a bit of a think. And to dry off, because, for the first time in over a week, at the very moment I started to walk home, it chucked it down with rain. (I like to think I was getting a symbolic washing away of what was the past and a welcome into a new aspect of my life. It was bloomin' cold, anyway.)

I toted a large garden plant with me, from the school, as a 'thank you and good-bye' present. Variously during the week I have also received a bottle of wine, a pot of honey, some honey flavoured handcream, a few well wishing cards, and a hand-made notebook from my now ex-Head of Department. 'My sister hand-makes them,' she said, 'and I told her about you and she made one especially to suit.'

And it did. Its design included cats and flowers and musical notes. Old-fashioned writing and a Victorian photograph. The musical notes and old-fashioned writing reminded me that I need to get 'Indigo Antfarm, Violet and Blue' finished and sent off to some agents. In fact, last weekend, I made a list of around 30 agents to whom I can send the script for perusal.

The card that came with the notebook was also hand-made - a sort of padded, embroidered postcard creation, with bees and a bee-hive on it. It's really beautiful, and reminded me that I need to finish the embroidery I started to mark the birth of Kayleigh. And to finish turning a pair of old, but favourite curtains into cushion covers for the cushions on the chairs at the kitchen table. They have chickens on them. The curtains, not the kitchen chairs, although, dear readers, you know what liberties my hens sometimes take when it comes to dropping in for cocoa and a chocolate chip shortbread.

It has been a difficult few months. There have been tears and frustrations, along with some laughs and the occasional glimmer that I had made a difference to someone's life, if only for a day (God Bless Grace!). But, as with all difficult passages in a life worth living, positive momentum comes along and nudges the drifting soul in the right direction. By going back to teaching, I discovered I did not want to teach any more. Not in the traditional, mainstream secondary education sense of the word anyway. There are other means of teaching, other routes to explore.

I also discovered I missed writing - a lot. I have writing projects to tackle; I understand now that it's important to have the time to do these things properly. Teaching is time-hungry. Writing is time-hungry, too, but writing, unlike teaching, does much to satisfy the appetite of creativity.

Last year I was lucky enough to have a Tarot reading from a very gifted psychic whom I met almost by accident (if you believe that accidents happen and are not actually Fate wrapped up in a surprise). He told me that my life is lived in circles, but after each circle I complete I move off at a slightly different tangent onto another circle. I was concerned this meant that I'd never learn, that I'd keep going round and round and get nowhere, making the same errors over and over. No, he said. What you do is jump off the circle before you start making the same mistakes again. You travel full circle to cover all aspects of what you need to learn. And then you take your learning with you onto the next circle, expanding your life as you go. And this is good, he said.

And typing that rememberance has given me an idea for a design for a business card. Which I must go and put in the book of ideas I've started to help me as I work towards becoming a Holistic Health Practitioner.

A girl in my tutor group asked me today if I was retiring.
'No,' I replied. 'That's something I think I shall never do.'