Stasis

 Rounding the bend here, coming in for a nice soft landing. Looking forward to my sixtieth year with enthusiasm and relief. Fifty-nine isn't such a big deal, after all. Milestone birthdays have kind of passed me by in the past nine years. 

But this August will be the start of my twenty-fifth year at Horace Mann Elementary. The job that I took when my son was born, the career upon which I was embarking was just a lot of unanswered questions back then. Stick with something for a quarter century, and it starts to make sense. A couple things about that: First of all, I know that I tend to go on and on from time to time about my longevity at this one particular stop. Common sense suggests that I found an eddy in the stream that was mutually comfortable for myself and those around me. My willingness to stay put should not be ignored, but I am fully aware that I have generated patience and understanding that I might have previously thought was impossible. Secondly, all the badges trophies stickers and T-shirts in the world don't mean that I might have applied all of my capacities in some other venture that would have been every bit as rewarding. And there are plenty of things I could have been doing with my time that would not have been as fulfilling. All of which is to say that if I start going on and on again about how long I've been at this job, feel; free to raise a hand and tell me you've already seen this movie.

In another year, I will have lived in California as long as I lived in Colorado. This might have something to do with my reticence for moving cardboard boxes of my own belongings as anything else. If I had latched myself to a different career, I might have been asked to relocate as a matter of the ebb and flow of economics or the need for skills that only I possess. I am rarely struck with a feeling that makes me wonder where else I might like to live. The move to Oakland was pretty profound and has taken me nearly thirty years to fully comprehend. 

There I go again, measuring my life by my ability to stay put. Turns out that life isn't so very different now as it was then. When I turned forty, I traveled across the country to Florida. I visited Key West, and spent a few days in Disney World. And somewhere in the back of my head was this thought: "I'm really looking forward to being home." Which I have learned from telling this story a few times that I appear not to have enjoyed my time away. On the contrary. I loved every morsel and minute. But part of me loves having a home base even more. 

And that's been true for fifty-nine years. Maybe this is the year that I break out and go somewhere new and try a whole bunch of new things.

Don't count on it.