Once upon a time…
My niece, Keyanna (15), painted a painting of me as a retirement gift.
How did she fit 30 years of my life, into that small frame?
“Once Upon a Time,” can last a lifetime. It does for me, most times. I have a way of tuning out the bad, and rewriting the script for better outcomes. I am a firm believer in the adage: The pen is mightier than the sword. Often, when I observe someone who is belligerent, cruel, or an antagonizer, my mind and thoughts immediately try to align them with some fictional antagonist. Sometimes it is, “Et tu, Brute’?” Or, it is, “Oh, what a tangled web they weave, when first they practice to deceive.” Rarely if ever, do I allow anyone to ruin an entire day for me; I will find a way to flip the script into a better day—or moment. Many who know me say that I am so chill—unflinching. While that is not wholly true, I do have a persona of “never let them see you sweat.”
How do I, do it? I do a lot of reflecting and reflective unpacking of moments and days. My days were packed, prior to my retirement, and were for the 30 years of my service as an educator. It took me months after my retirement in January 2020, to unpack my career. What do I mean by unpack, you say? To unpack is to carefully select an aspect or component of that time and observe and evaluate it, for what it held or holds—reliving it. I am a journalism major, so I engage with my reflective practice through using the 5-W’s and the How: who, what, when, where, why, and how? Then, the emotions or feelings return, and I can better assess the impact of the day. I respond to the challenges, pain, and the joy of the moment. …and, by respond, I mean I determine what is my next step. What action should I take. or must I take. This was my practice, most of my life—even from childhood. I refined the process to incorporate a few other things, when I realize that what I did was a thing! Yes, other people did this process intentionally, and had written about it. Here I am thinking that it was my thing. So, yes, being a reflective practitioner is a thing.
