Tag Archives: retirement

Writing speeches

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Last Friday my buddy Dave and I delivered speeches that we combined together. At our Principal and Vice Principals association retirement dinner, the tradition is that someone speaks for the retiree, then the retiree speaks. Since we were going to speak for each other, we just went up and took turns.

We came up with a theme: Gratitude, Attitude, and Magnitude. And we took turns talking about each other and ourselves, after thanking people we appreciated the support of, (many of whom were in the room). It was a really fun way to mix it up a bit and I hope we made it entertaining, not just self indulgent.

Now I’ve got one more speech to do before I retire, and that’s to the graduating class at our graduation ceremony. I write a unique speech each year, and try to embed relevance to the current class. What I’m really cautious about is to downplay my retirement. This night is not about me, and should not be about me. So, in a way it’s a bit easier to write than the one last week.

Still, every year I spend a lot of time thinking about what I’ll say to the graduates, and this year seems quite challenging. It’s our smallest grad class in years and if I had to describe them as a group, the thing they have in common is that they are all so different. They get along great, but they really don’t have personalities or interests that are alike in any way.

I’m literally thinking as I write this that the differences are what the speech will focus on: Individuality Within Community. That said, I’ll probably change the topic 5 times before I give the speech in two weeks. I enjoy this process because I enjoy writing. A speech is an opportunity to story-tell. It’s a chance to acknowledge and appreciate others. It’s a way to share values within your community.

Writing speeches is also something I’m going to miss in retirement. Not because I like the limelight, but rather because when I write a speech I find that I am able to consolidate my thoughts and ideas into words in a way that I simply wouldn’t if I didn’t have to write the speech. Speeches to me aren’t just about the external sharing of ideas, they are also about the internal synthesis of my thoughts while I write them.

Both good and busy!

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I’m exhausted. Thursday night was a late retirement dinner event, and so was Friday night. Then I finally got to the weekend. This morning, Saturday morning, I drove my mom to the airport. From there, I took my daughter into town to look at a rental apartment. We had 45 minutes to kill so we went for coffee and a couple scones. I didn’t realize that would be lunch. We viewed the apartment and walked around the neighbourhood for a bit. Then it was off to the next event.

We met my wife, in-laws, and youngest daughter at the theatre and we saw ‘Come From Away’. This was my second time seeing this wonderful play. Then I took my oldest daughter directly from the theatre to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal so she could head back to Victoria.

I was very hungry by that point and headed to the outlet mall to eat. I arrived home nine and a half hours after heading out this morning and walked straight up to my bedroom and fell asleep for 2 hours. I haven’t even been up an hour and I’m ready to go to bed for the night.

It’s June, school is busy, retirement celebrations are busy, family life is busy. Everything is going well, it’s just a lot of busy. I’m exhausted and I’ve got to get up early and do a few climbs up the Coquitlam Crunch tomorrow morning in training for Everesting the Crunch in August… again something good, going well… just a lot right now. Off to bed to ensure I get a good night’s sleep, because I need it!

Celebration after celebration

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Last week I had a personally organized retirement event that I shared with a friend. Yesterday was a dinner for all district retirees. Tonight there’s a dinner for principal and vice principal retirees, and then Monday is a celebration organized by my staff. After this I have one more retirement on July first, organized by my wife for a handful of friends.

It feels like a lot right now. It also feels quite surreal. I’m not used to this much attention coming my way, and if I’m honest, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. It’s funny, sometimes in a school it feels like anything and everything comes my way and that’s a kind of attention I handle with no problems. But the moment the attention is on me rather than towards me, I want to just avoid it altogether.

Still, I don’t want to come off as complaining, it has been wonderful to reminisce and celebrate with people who have lofted me up, supported, and collaborated with me over my career.…

Part 2

I didn’t get this completed this morning. It’s now 10:15pm and I just got home from the retirement. The speeches are usually a person talking about the retiree, followed by the retiree speaking. My buddy Dave and I took turns talking about each other. I’ll probably share more about this later but for now I’ll just say that this made it extra special. I’m lucky to be retiring at the same time with him and couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate tonight.

I started off the day thinking this all feels like ‘too much’, but I ended the night feeling like my gratitude cup is spilling over… and that’s a completely different and wonderful kind of ‘too much’.

The June rush

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I want to say that I’m not going to miss the June rush, but I will. I always chuckle a little when people who are not in education say things like, “You must be winding down to summer now.” It’s much more like ‘ramping up’ than ‘winding down’. There is so much going on in a school in June, and adding retirement events to this just makes it feel a little overwhelming.

Today is a crazy day for me. We have next year’s incoming students visiting for the day, followed by our final PAC meeting, followed by a district retirement dinner. From the moment I hit the gym at 6am until 8pm tonight I don’t have a moment to spare. That said, it should be a really fun day too.

That’s the thing about the June rush, it is simultaneously great and exhausting. It’s a month of dichotomies. It’s I time of event-after-event, but each one of those events is a bit of a celebration. There is excitement about graduation, and ending the year, and there is the sense that the pace is all too much. There is the excitement of changes to come, and the sense of sadness of things ending.

Here’s the thing about the June rush, it’s easy to get stuck in the busyness, in the rush and the planning of event after event, in the checking off the last time you have to do something, and in the melancholy of knowing things are coming to an end. Meanwhile, each event is a gift. Each event is an opportunity to spend time with students and colleagues, and to celebrate the year that was. Yes, June is really busy, but within that busyness is hidden many moments to appreciate.

I can’t wait

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Yesterday after work I wrote a longer, rather dystopian post about the future of AI. I developed the idea and the start of the title the night before. I thought up the end of the title, the 3 scenarios, on the drive to work, and I sat at my desk at about 4pm and wrote the post in just over an hour. This was a rare opportunity where I was able to sit, completely uninterrupted for that long, and just wrote a piece, start to finish… I did need some edit time after I published it because I had another work event in the evening, so I couldn’t sit longer and do the final edits.

And that’s what I can’t wait to do when I retire. I want dedicated, uninterrupted writing time. Not like right now, when I’m rushing to get most of this done before connecting with a friend to get a pre-work workout in. Not a 30 minute window where I try to get everything down, create an image, post and share online. Instead, I want an hour or more of undisturbed writing time.

This doesn’t always happen in the summer. I’ll often still feel rushed, with family commitments and other daily activities getting in the way. But it is my hope that in retirement I can actually schedule time to write, make it a priority, and a regular part of my daily routine.

Since joining a gym back in November, I’ve felt very rushed with my writing. It only takes about 12-15 minutes to get to the gym, but the commute costs me roughly a half hour more than my regular morning routine before joining. My workout is also a bit longer than it used to be. So the cost in time has come at the expense of my writing. And often I have to push my daily write to the evening when I’m tired and just want to get it done for the day.

I can’t wait to have more time just to write!

Finish strong

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I share a message that my kids have heard over and over again, “Be safe, be smart.” I say this to them almost every time they leave the house. I don’t care that they are 24 & 26 years old, I deliver this like a mantra. A good friend of mine has a different kind of mantra told at a different times to his kid, and that’s, “Finish strong.”

I’m in need of this mantra right now. The coming weeks are so busy, I’m tired, and yet I’m so close to the end… I’ve got just over 20 work days left until I retire, and I keep telling myself, ‘Finish strong!’

There are other things I’m saying to myself. I’m trying to remember to pause, and to enjoy the celebrations that come with retirement… but the main mantra, the thing that I keep coming back to, is to ‘Finish strong!’

Battery recharge

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Next week is going to be extremely busy. I’ve got something on the go every day, and a couple of those days will take a lot out of me. I think this coming week will be the busiest of the month. I’m going to need to maximize my rest and be very efficient with my time.

I find weeks like this exhausting not just because the schedule is crazy but also because I end up getting less sleep. I head to bed wired and thinking about what I still have to do, and that results in me staying up later, and not getting as much rest. I am aware of this, and yet I can’t seem to break the pattern.

I’m me of my biggest goals in retirement is figuring out a better sleep pattern. I know that not having an all-day work agenda should make things better… but I fear that heading into summer, I’ll actually just stay up later. This is normal for me during the summer, when the days are longer.

My challenge is to find a routine where I’m fully recharging my battery because this is one aspect of healthy living I have not figured out. I can eat well and work out regularly with minimal effort now because these are habits I’ve developed. They don’t take motivation and discipline, they just get done as part of failing living.

A good night’s sleep still requires effort, and the discipline to go to bed early enough. I have to figure out how to routinize sleeping, rather than relying on motivation… Because my motivation isn’t strong enough. And weeks like the one coming remind me that sleep can make or break the kind of week I end up having.

And on that note… I’m off to bed.

The two Daves

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Yesterday I had the first of a few retirement celebrations. What was wonderful about it is that I celebrated with my good friend, mentor, and brother-from-another-mother, Dave Sands. I started my career a few years after Dave and in my first year I was provided the opportunity to co-teach a student leadership class with him. That was the start of an amazing friendship, and although we only worked in the same building for 2 years, we have truly been colleagues who have had opportunities to collaborate and work with each other throughout our careers. As well, we have had countless breakfasts, lunches, and walks up the Coquitlam Crunch.

The retirement event was wonderful. There were a few fun stories…

A meme or two…

And an opportunity to celebrate our careers.

Screenshot

However, what really made this wonderful were the people who joined us. Yes, we’ve both had pretty successful, and as was mentioned, influential careers in the district. And there were jokes about the different superpowers we possess. But if we actually have any superpowers it’s in connecting with some really great people. What made the event special were the people who joined us.

As I reach the end of my career I keep looking back at the wonderful people I’ve worked with, and the way that I’ve been supported by them. With every accomplishment I can think of there have been amazing people that have been part of the team or who have initiated an opportunity for me in some way. When I reflect on the collaborative journey I’ve been on, again and again, I feel blessed.

Celebrating my retirement with the other Dave allowed us both to appreciate the people around us, but also each other. We both had out-of-the-box kind of journeys and our careers for the past decade-plus have run in parallel. Having each other as friends made the journey so much easier, more enjoyable, and less alone. It was totally fitting to have our retirement celebration together.

Almost too much on the go…

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Yesterday I came back from a wonderful overnight school field trip to Merritt with a group of students, to go fishing for ‘Fish School’. I arrived home and was surprised by my mom, who came to celebrate my retirement, with events happening tonight and next week Thursday. I’m off with my wife and friends tomorrow night to see Mamma Mia! live at the theatre. And then I had planned to go to an event all day Saturday but I’m realizing that I need a break… and I’d like to spend the day with my mom.

Even when all the things that are happening are things you enjoy, sometimes they can feel like they are a little too much. I know this pace isn’t going to slow down too much (or at all) in June, and so I need to start really thinking about rest, sleep, and keeping up with all my healthy habits. The last thing I want to do is run myself down over the next month.

I can remember an age where I could metaphorically ‘burn the candle at both ends’ but I’m not that age anymore. No, I’m used to one, maybe two events a week. This non-stop series of events in a week is making me want to crawl under a blanket for 2-3 days… And yet I’m looking forward to the next couple days. That said, I am cancelling my event Saturday, I’m understanding the need to find some more down time… and I’m going to attempt to burn only one end of my candle at a time doing all the rest of the coming events.

A wonderful surprise

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I knew my oldest daughter was coming home from Victoria. She came over to the mainland for a retirement celebration I’m having tomorrow. So when I got home and she was there, it was nice to see her… what I wasn’t expecting was that my wife had flown my mother out from Toronto for the celebration as well. This is the second time my wife has completely surprised me. The first time was with a trip to Vegas for my 40th birthday… 9 months before my birthday!

Well, she did it again. Here is the video:

I feel so blessed. This is wonderful. <3

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Here it is again from my younger daughter’s angle: