User:JohnB/Fanfiction/Farewell

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I went to my women's English group this morning (1/19/2019), the first time since I was made to retire in Dec 2018. They asked how I was doing, and I said it was like dying. They were clearly taken aback, so I explained:

When you know you're going to go, first, you get very angry--why me?! And no matter how you work it out in your head, the answer always comes out the same--why not me?! This sort of thing happens to everybody.

My fast and furious output in 2017-2018 that totaled 20 stories and the entire "The Book and the Stone" speak for the riot in my head. It's as if I wanted to leave as much to the world as I possibly could in the short time that I had left.

Well, of course, I'm still here, but a raging soul writes more than a quiescent soul, and what I told the women in my group is that, like death, retirement creeps upon you and then...it just happens. What they hey! That wasn't so bad after all!

I turn around to look back and see nothing. It's as if almost 40 years of teaching in this country never happened. My career was laid to rest. I've entered into a new sort of reality, and I look at the stuff I wrote and wonder...is that really mine? Could I do that ever again? I'm afraid not.

All I can say is: sorry, guys, but I've got to tend to so many other things that need to get done in the next 20 years or so that I have left to me. First and foremost, I have to help my wife recover from her thyroid surgery. They cut a particularly sensitive part of the body to remove the tumor, so it will take up to a month to heal completely.

I found part-time work at a local prep school to help tide us over, and I've begun reading the eleven volumes of Will Durant's The Story of Civilization. I'm in Volume I now. I also want to look into creating my own operating system following instructions in a site called "Linux From Scratch".

Anyway, I hope all of you have enjoyed my stories as much as I enjoyed writing them. And I hope some of you will try your own hand at adding to the UESPWiki fan-fiction site.

Fare thee well!