Killing It In My Sixties

Does going home to your childhood places comfort you? I have been doing a lot of coming home for the past 3 years. First, I returned to my home town of Petaluma after living in other cities, and in one case – another country, for the ten years prior to that. It would be an understatement to say that I was both chasing adventures while running away from things, people, feelings and difficult memories.

Two years ago, I returned to the world of education, after retiring from it eight years ago – taking on the role of a substitute teacher here in my town. I had been a teacher at the community college level for a few years during the escalation of my career. I then moved on to higher education administration as a Director and then a Student Services Dean. It meant so much to me to have earned those positions after so many years of pursuing my undergraduate and graduate degrees as a working adult. Returning as a substitute teacher was much less stressful than college administration – and I loved being with the students again.

Then, six weeks ago, I came upon the opportunity to work at the high school I attended and graduated from in 1978. When I saw the advertisement for the job on Facebook – a switch clicked in my mind instantly. I knew this job was meant to be mine. I hadn’t been looking to start a new job – after all – I am getting older by the minute and I assumed the job I was at, was where I would retire from.

This particular job was one I knew so well. It was to be the Front Office Administrator for the high school. When I was a student there, the person in that position, Mrs. V, was a wonderful woman; a unique blend of mother, friend, advisor, protector, rule-keeper, nurse-like, and safe haven amidst the hectic life of a teenager.

My high school years were some of the most difficult of my childhood. My parents had divorced the year prior to my starting 9th grade. The years that followed did not provide a happy home life of a traditional intact family. Because my home wasn’t a place I felt like I belonged – high school became my entire world. I would arrive before eight o’clock in the morning and most days – stayed there until night time – sometimes even till bedtime.

I was just an average student, but it was the activities I joined that provided the community I was so desperately looking for. I was in several plays in the Drama department, ran on the track team, was a cheerleader, as well as volunteering to be on every committee imaginable. I felt like I belonged at that high school. People cared that I was there – they provided the sense of community and belonging I was so attracted to. It would not be an overstatement to say that St. Vincent High School saved my life. I was someone there – I counted and I mattered.

When the opportunity came up in the form of a job advertisement – I felt that God was guiding me back home. Home to a place that saved me, and would now provide me – the opportunity to be the current day, “Mrs. V.”. I felt like I was at the point in my life where all of my past jobs and experiences had prepared me exactly for – THIS.

It happened FAST – so FAST. Within two weeks, I had interviewed, been hired, fingerprinted, and started in a little under two weeks. I know my former employer was shell-shocked with my sudden notice – but I knew that God was firmly steering the wheel on this phase of my life’s journey. It was the homecoming I had been hoping for but wasn’t consciously pursuing.

The day I started this new job, I walked the same halls I had walked for four years in high school, saw the same familiar walls, lockers, library, Quad in the middle of the school where students gather, the old gym which is now a multi-use room, and the Principal’s office – right where it has always been. I felt like I was right back home again – not a feeling you usually experience at a new job – especially on the first day!

And from that first day – I knew I was where I was meant to be. In a sheer coincidence, Mrs. V. Passed just a couple weeks before I learned of the job opening and she had been on my mind, as well as her sons and daughters that I had gone to school with. Maybe, just maybe, she had a talk with someone “up there” and orchestrated a little more magic in my life – one more time.

Last weekend was Homecoming, and I went to the football game and sat out on the field where I had celebrated homecoming activities forty six years ago. Much has changed since then, including me, but sitting there I felt the same sense of gratitude for this school saving me once again.