Today marks the five-year anniversary of retiring from a 32-year career in education. It’s amazing how time flies.

I smile when someone tells me I’m “too young to be retired” – but I started working in education at age 21, just a few months after graduation. It was a dream job – helping plan and host alumni reunions and homecoming events for my alma mater. Five years later, I briefly stopped working full-time for two years to go to graduate school but continued working at the university in my field of study – student development (advising, counseling, career planning… pretty much the things I should have taken better advantage of when I was an undergraduate). Those two years were some of the most rewarding and challenging, and I’m so glad I made that short detour because it pushed me in the direction of the work I was meant to do.

Truth be told, I started working when I was 16… and never stopped. My first job was at Rack Room Shoes – basically, every two weeks, I got a paycheck and handed most of it right back to them (I have a thing about shoes). I worked for the next four years at the university bookstore to pay for tuition and those “co-curricular expenses”. While many of my friends were enjoying summer breaks or enduring summer school, I was deep in the piles of used textbooks, getting them cleaned, priced, and ready for the start of the semester rush. The store was located at the edge of campus, where all of the restaurants, eclectic shops and bars were – just a short stumble from the residence halls. The two men who owned the bookstore took an old movie theatre and converted it into one of the coolest places to hand over your student loan dollars. The projection room was the business office, and they kept some of the old equipment up there for a bit of nostalgia. And the little window where the projector would shine through also made a great place to look over the store and make sure someone wasn’t trying to swipe something. Remember the scene from “Roadhouse” where Frank Tilghman, the owner, could look out over the bar and see all the customers and the fights getting ready to take place? Sorta like that office. Dark, mysterious, and a little bit musty.

Anyway, the two owners, Roy and Bob, were the best bosses any college kid could ask for, and while they took their work seriously, they also knew how to have fun. In fact, they paid for all of the staff who had worked there since the store opened to go to the Bahamas for fall break of my senior year. They stayed back at the store, and Roy sent his mother and auntie as our “chaperones”… let’s just say that was a bad call. I think they had more fun and found more trouble than we did. Well, except for the night that my buddy and I ended up singing with the house band and were asked to come back for an encore the next night.

But I digress. Back to my retirement story.

Helping students to adjust to college was dear to my heart – neither of my parents finished college, so I was technically what they call a “first generation” college student. Shy, scared, and completely at a loss for what I wanted to study, I was dropped off on the sidewalk of the student union by my father for freshman orientation and had to learn quickly to “sink or swim”. My academic experience was okay – I ended up selecting English as a major, quite honestly because I had done well with it in high school. I figured if I could write and communicate, I could find a job doing something. But it was the experiences I had outside of the classroom that nudged me toward my career path. I wrote for the college newspaper, which is where I met my first upperclassmen friends. I joined a sorority (and felt completely out of my element). It was only when I decided to come out of my shell and join the orientation staff that I realized what it was that I wanted to do for a career – work with college students.

This ramble is getting long, so I won’t bore you with the details. But I will share a few of the best memories I had.

For about ten years, I worked with a small-town community college in the student services area. My first job was as an admission counselor and recruiter. Although I loved working with the high school seniors, my heart was drawn to those people whose jobs had been abruptly ended when the mills or factories closed with little or no warning. They appeared in my office with shaken confidence and uncertainty of where the future would head. We’d have conversations about the things they enjoyed most about the work they did, and then we’d look at opportunities to build on the skills they had and find the right training to get them back on their feet. Eventually, I served as Director of Enrollment for several years before making the decision to challenge myself and pursue an opportunity to create and facilitate training programs for high school and college counselors across North Carolina. I don’t regret it one bit.

Eventually, I returned to my alma mater in a senior-level academic administrator role. Policy management and helping foreign national faculty through the hiring and permanent residence processes. I loved being back at my university, but over the five years I served in the role, the pull to work directly with students again grew stronger. And I was within five years of my retirement window, so I started looking for opportunities to get back to it one last time.

I returned to the community college system, this time working at the campus directly across the street from my old high school, which felt like coming full-circle. I was hired to create and head up a college health sciences admission and advising center. On my first day, I walked in the unused classroom space that was to become my workspace, and as I looked at the pile of discarded desks and textbooks in the center of the room, my new boss said, “Well, I hope you can make something of this.” Gulp.

But over those last two years of my career, I managed to envision what an ideal center would look like, working with builders, furniture suppliers, and faculty to bring it to life. When I was able to hire an assistant, not only did I find a coworker who made the long and sometimes stressful days easier, I found one of the best friends I could ever have. And for the last five years, we still talk with each other and laugh hysterically… every day.

So, how do I end this full-tilt remembrance?

First, I’ll say that I’m SO thankful for being dropped off on campus by my dad that day back in summer of 1984. It forced me to grow and learn how to ask for help when I needed it.

I wish I could find my bookstore bosses and throw back a Schaefer Light and tell them how that job helped me pay for college and learn to become independent (they used to provide a case of Schaefer Light on the nights we’d all work late, getting ready for the first day of book buyback). And I’d tell them all the things Roy’s mother and auntie did in the Bahamas because I’m CERTAIN they never told him!

I’d say thank you to all the people who mentored me as an undergraduate and helped me find the courage to pursue a master’s degree, so I could help students to find their own courage.

It’s been five years today. Sometimes I wonder if I still have a few more years of energy left to return to work full-time in this field. But then, I realize I left at the perfect time.

There were other things on which I needed to focus – my creative/artistic/musical side, taking care of my father as his health declined and he entered hospice care, and learning how to adjust to the “curve balls” that adult life can sometimes throw your way. Some of those things I handled quite well, and others? Well…

Back in 2017, I participated in a workshop that taught us how to use various tools to help students to discover their “spark” and follow an academic and career path that best aligned with their personality, interests, values, and skills. At a break, I mentioned to a fellow participant that I was looking forward to retiring. He said, “I like to think of it not as retiring… but as starting a new chapter.”

His insight was not lost on me. So, here’s to a new chapter. Think I’ll take some of my own advice and find that “spark” that puts me on the right path.

Wonder if they still sell Schaefer Light in these parts?