I looked up at the stage and knew that my turn was coming next.

After 30 years spent as a teacher and school principal, my time had run out. I had finally decided to retire!

This was the final school assembly, and I was being recognized for my many years on the job. Speaker after speaker lauded my accomplishments over the years, and various students publicly thanked me for changing their lives. It was a very humbling experience.

The call finally came for me to address the crowd. The butterflies in my stomach were fluttering like crazy and kicking up a storm. This was always the part of the job I liked the least.

You can never really take the introvert out of some of us…

As I nervously approached the stage, the entire gymnasium rose to its feet in an ovation of appreciation. A warm feeling of gratification and accomplishment washed over my illuminated face.

As I looked out at the crowd in appreciation, I knew one thing without a doubt.

I was never coming back…

I meant that literally, but also creatively.

Over the years, I have written countless stories covering a wide variety of topics. They all have one thing in common, though. Everything that I pen is based upon my own actual life experiences and digs deeper than even I am comfortable with at times.

However, I very rarely write anything about my many years spent in the field of education.

That seems to be a bit counterintuitive, does it not?

After all, we all know that our best writing comes from our own lived experiences. We are the experts of our lives. Am I not disregarding a huge chunk of my life and losing out on a wealth of potential writing topics?

This is the question that is often presented to me by many other writers and also my friends and family.

" You must have so many interesting and intriguing school stories to tell." An endless bank of ideas.

I do! I just won't be telling them anytime soon. As with most things in life, there is a very good reason for that.

When people ask why I don't write about those 30 years in my life very often, they don't realize that, for me, looking back feels like walking backwards. It is not a place I wish to go.

For decades, I was obsessed with my career as an educator. I would show up to work in the wee hours of the morning and return home when the dark had once again invaded the sky.

It came at a cost.

While I was busy ensuring hundreds of other people's children were safe and educated, I became a virtual ghost in my own home. At one point, I remember looking at a photo of a family vacation and realizing I couldn't remember being there. My body had been present, but my mind was back at the office, agonizing over a budget crisis or a parent meeting.

Everything I did was about the job, and it was often done at the expense of the other areas of my life. That was the sacrifice I willingly made. My dedication and work ethic turned me into a fine educator.

It also created a very one-dimensional person, however, one who lost himself in the process.

A few weeks after that final assembly, I was in my basement, packing thirty years of my life into cardboard boxes. It was here I found the yellowed pages of a novel I had started in my twenties. I sat on the floor and tried to add a few lines of prose, but the words felt foreign to me. I realized then that I'd spent three decades polishing dry reports until I had completely lost the ability to tell my own story.

I had traded the rhythm of my soul for the rigid tolling of the school bell, and I hadn't even noticed when my own characters had gone silent.

While I loved my career in education, I missed out on so many other areas of life due to my obsession. I seldom had the time or inclination to appreciate the many beautiful things surrounding me. "Missed opportunities" was the order of the day.

Not anymore.

I retired a few years ago with the intention of exploring new and exciting areas of my life, and to gain new perspectives.

The world of education no longer factored into these plans.

Been there, done that.

Admittedly, I got off to a very rough start as I was quickly hit by multiple bouts of cancer. The many years of neglecting my own health had finally caught up to me, and I continue that battle to this very day. Needless to say, the transition to retirement became a challenge. The start was characterized by pain and sickness.

So much for my grand plans!

Or was it?

I know it will sound strange, but I even see undergoing this struggle as a blessing. It has opened my eyes to the reality of my own mortality and given me a much deeper appreciation for life and those around me.

There is nothing like your impending death to make you begin to truly appreciate life.

Change is never easy, and it is almost always accompanied by some sort of struggle.

You see, after 30 years, I want to grow beyond the classroom. Choosing instead to explore the many other things that life has to offer. Bound and determined to create a whole new bank of experiences.

Your identity is a garden, not a monument. Just because you spent 30 years tending one plot doesn't mean you aren't allowed to plant something entirely new in the next season of your life.

You are never too old to reinvent yourself. Don't let anyone out there ever tell you differently.

In truth, I have nothing but profound respect for educators. They do a critical and incredibly difficult job as they help develop the young minds that will one day run the world. This is increasingly difficult to do these days.

I take my proverbial hat off to them.

My time has come and gone, though.

And I am never going back.

Who is Leonard?

Founder of Infinite Impulse.

Writer| Reader, and most recently… cancer survivor. Retired teacher and school principal.