My contract with my school district ends today, the last day of July, 2026. I have one more paycheque coming next week. And then I’m officially a pensioner. 

I’ve had a few celebrations, I’ve filled out a bunch of forms. I’ve emptied my office and moved out. All that’s left is to return my laptop and key. Today I did one more small thing: I just updated my LinkedIn profile ending my career. My bio now says,

“Retired from being an Educator and Principal, still finding ways to keep learning. ∞β”

I’ll probably change this in the coming days or months, but it will do for now. In actual fact, I’m not really retired because I’ve had another ‘job’ listed on LinkedIn for about 15 years now. The job title is ‘Open Thinker’ and the organization is ‘Daily-Ink and Pairadimes for Your Thoughts Blogs’. This ‘job’ is over 20 years old and going stronger than ever. Now, I have more time to write; More time to spend on projects I want to spend time on; More time to ‘work’ on things I want to work on. 

In a way, I’m reprioritizing, not retiring. I’m still the same nerdy person, still in perpetual beta (∞β), still wanting to learn and share ‘out loud’. If I do this retirement thing right, I’ll continue to prioritize my health, I’ll focus more on diet and sleep – two areas of my life that have the most room for improvement… And I’ll keep finding things I’m passionate to learn about, and pursue those with the same commitment I gave my previous jobs. And I will keep reminding myself that I want to create new experiences with the people I care for and love.

Work prioritized as endeavours that I want to do, with more freedom to do them when I want. 

Right now, I want to finish writing and enjoy an undetermined amount of time listening to my book in a hammock. I could really get used to this.