Decisions and their effect

Today must be a good day for decisions.  Before I even got out of bed this morning, I had made a couple of decisions that I had been putting off.  One made me a little leery, one made my husband extremely happy (he gets a Christmas present he wanted).  For us, there are many decisions looming on the horizon that will affect us in many ways.  Even though you make the decision, and you THINK you know what will happen - life often laughs in your face - and you get a totally unexpected result.

One of the things I was thinking about this morning was retirement.  I want so very much to retire after another year of teaching.  Physically, I am not sure my body can take many more years of 13 hour days, and the energy it takes to actively teach for 7 hours straight.  But immediately upon that thought was the absolute certainty that if I do retire, we will starve!  Watching the prices of every single thing in the US go sky high gives me the willies!  I don't expect inflation to stop anytime soon, and retirement would mean almost 1/2 of our income being cut - so probably won't get to retire when I want to.  I kid my fellow teachers that they will be wheeling me in on a gurney when I'm 80 to teach! 

I started into teaching late after my family was raised.  Went to collge, got my degree and got a teaching job.  Sometimes the thought flows through my head when I think of retirement, and I wish I had done this years and years earlier.  Probably, my retirement salary would have been enough by now to retire.  But within seconds of that wishful thinking, comes a strong sense of what I would have missed had I made that decision when I was 19 to finish college and get a degree.

First off, I can almost guarantee I would not be a teacher.  I was a typical 19 year old, not really sure what I wanted to do with my life.  I went to college for one year at Alva, OK, met the love of my life, got married, moved and proceeded to live my life.  I got good grades, but I had no real direction that I was aiming for.  I may have gotten a degree that would have been worthless.  It was only after having my family, and seeing some of the fabulous teachers my children had growing up, that the urge to teach began to haunt me.  It is truly in my soul, and although it is back breaking, and sometime heartbreaking work, I am blessed for having made the right decision that led me to getting a teaching degree at 43 years old.

Then I got to thinking about what that decision I made to marry at 19 led me to.  My first job after marriage was at DHS.  Lots of typing, and lots of seeing the poverty that many families lived in.  It made me extremely grateful on a daily basis for what I had.

Other jobs that came my way seemed to fit whatever circumstances we were in.  When the kids were little and I didn't want them to have to be in daycare, I babysat, made crafts at home and sold them, and sold tupperware when my husband was on the right shift to babysit.  All of those jobs gave me a little more knowledge in many different ways.  Finances, more experience with children, learning I did have some craftiness in my body :)  and learning to juggle raising children and my job - but without having to haul the kids to daycare every day.  I worked as an inspector at the elections - and that worked when my kids were older because the elections weren't very often.  I got a job cleaning trash at a drivein theater.  Lots of knowledge there - and the kids got to earn their very first job money helping me in the mornings.  I learned that regardless of the job, you do your best.  I cleaned the inside of the concession stand and learned a LOT about getting popcorn grease off the floor, and cleaning restrooms (YUCK).  The funny thing about that job, is that recycling paid really, really good then.  We couldn't afford a bicycle for our son, but thanks to picking up cans and bottles that people brought and threw out at the drivein - we made enough money one summer by recycling to pay for a bicycle for him.  Not bad!  I even learned about nature - because Kildare birds would make their nests in the gravel.  The kids were always hunting to find their nests, because they were really camouflouged.  We looked up information about Kildeer, and the kids got a nature lesson.

Then a brand new program was implemented in the Juvenile Department.  I was hired as secretary to the Restitution Program - where teens who have done damage pay off the bill.  We helped them get hired by companies, etc.  I was only secretary for a few months, and then the Restitution Officer quit, and they moved me into the position.  All of a sudden, I was meeting with perspective employers (and I was about as shy as they come in those days), learning how to business talk correctly, and match kids with jobs.  I had to apply for the grant every year, and manage every bit of money - including figuring out how much social security money, state withholding and federal withholding to keep out of my check.  I did hire a secretary for a month or so, and she moved.  So I did it all.  To get the grant each year, because the total grant money was smaller each year, I had to present my program to a board, tell them WHY I should be the program that got the money that year, instead of someplace else in OK.  To say I was terrified is the understatement of the year.  Talking in front of a group was something I was beyond terrified to do.  But I did it, I learned and I truly think that experience helped me when I became a teacher.

Eventually, the grant was empty, and I was hired to become an Assistant Juvenile Officer.  I learned all about court stuff, even had to testify on occasion.  I was dropped into the darker side of child abuse and molestation - and took away the innocence that I had.  I KNEW things like that happened, but until you have witnessed the aftereffects, and typed the details for court - you really don't know.  I learned pages after pages of laws as to what we could charge kids with.  I learned to work under a deadline - or an abused child would go back to their abusive family.  24 hours is a really tight deadline, and sometimes I would be typing the petition up hours before the child would have gone back to that horrible family.

Sounds like I wrote a resume!  But the decision to marry, have children, and move 200 miles away from my little hometown, shaped my life.  It got me to where I am today.  So although I would love to have a bigger retirement from teaching more years, those experience in between shaped me and made me who I am today - for better or worse! 

AND my last word on this - I would never, ever have changed those experineces and the chance to spend more time with my kids, including the last few years of high school when I didn't have a job at all due to my health.  I treasure the lunch times when they came flying in the door, I fed them, we chattered and they went flying back out to school.  I never knew who they would bring home for lunch, so I always made plenty.  I got to meet an exchange student from the Netherlands and one from Turkey - as well as see their close friends on a regular basis. 

Decisions don't always turn out how we expect.  But years later, those decisions are what shapes our life and make us who we are.

Peace and love to all.