Good Riddance

Good Riddance
by Helen Sadler

I am not sure when it started.

Do we ever really know when the will to change begins?

Was it that December when I heard the Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Mariposa” and began to cry?  Was it the lunch date with a friend who was teaching virtual school and loving it?  Was it the night my back froze up so solidly I couldn’t walk? Was it meeting with my old principal to see if he had a job for me?

All of those incidents contributed, to be sure.  But the real answer is this:

It was the dream.

I was no longer teaching high school, but instead was at Cypress Lake Middle School.  I was incredibly happy in this dream.  One of my current high school students brought me a milk shake to my new classroom, and told me that everyone wished me well.

The ball started rolling.

I made some calls. I told my new principal, who made a call.  And in less than two months, I secured a position at that very same middle school.

It was the one I dreamed of working at when I first arrived in Fort Myers.  They were doing great things with writing, I heard. They were well-established and liked. 

I subbed there a couple of times.  I think one time I pressed a lucky stone into the sandy ground near their parking lot, with a prayer to work there some day.

But I had been sidetracked into a job I loved.  I went from my original middle school teaching role (my midlife career change had been specifically to teach 7th graders) to high school because it seemed my best opportunity to land in a new position when I had already given up my old one. To be honest, a bit of panic mode.

Now it was time for something new.

I spent those last weeks of the 2013 school year packing up six years worth of classroom stuff, loading in my car, sometimes with the help of students. I accidentally melted some of my electric candles, and I found more glue sticks than I ever imagined I had. I left a cache of wooden rulers behind by accident.

The last day I proceeded to leave the parking lot and thought, Hmmm, let me put my iPod on shuffle and see what comes up. What message will I get?

Some familiar guitar licks came on, and I chuckled to myself:

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

Good old Green Day sending me off with a bit of irony. Even though the last thought on my mind when I left my beloved Lehigh Senior High School was “good riddance,” I took the message to heart.

I’m in my fourth year at CLMS now, and I am still waiting to love it there.  It has been slowly growing in that direction.  This is probably the best year yet.

The grass is never greener – right?  Everyone knows that. Sometimes we need to be careful what we wish for. I’ve often wondered why I have not felt what I expected. But who knows?

I like to think that the words “Make the best of the test and don’t ask why/ It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time” is the message I need to cling to, as I continue to work my way through my daily middle school life.  And there are many days I feel it close at hand. Especially lately.

Perhaps one day I will feel the happiness I felt in that dream. Perhaps not.

Meanwhile, I’ll focus on my own ending to this song:

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is right

I hope to have the time of my life.

(And, of course, I needed to include the bluegrass version of the song!  I saw Jeff Parker in 2015 at Bluegrass Night at the Ryman. He is a helluva mandolin player.)