A Thin Sheet of Glass

There's a thin sheet of glass between me and life. However clearly I see and understand life, I can't touch it.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 80

This very Pessoan observation feels very true to me at the moment, and it's a decided change from how I've felt for the last fifteen years. It's one of the reasons why I was up for hours in the middle of the night last night, and why I've been haunting the cabin on too many nights lately. I suppose I could relate it to the passing of my father, although I think it's true more symbolically than emotionally. Simply put, we weren't that close to each other. We loved each other, but neither of us ever played a very big role in the other's life, and I'm sure I was just as guilty on that front as he was. So, I don't think I miss him the way my siblings miss him, and that, largely, eliminates the emotional side of my recent struggles. Symbolically, however, well, that's another story. It's an old chestnut, but when both your parents have passed the great wheel of life has spun, and you're next in the queue (and, by simple mathematic logic, if you're the oldest of your generation of siblings that is even more true). As I've proposed on this blog, doubtless far too many times, I'm not worried about dying. I don't waste one moment on any day fretting about my eternal fate - that's just not how I view God. The thought that there's a divine figure adding and subtracting figures from a spectral spreadsheet is both illogical, and I would argue an insult to God. Rather, I think my father's passing has made me think about life's transition points, and, obviously, since I just turned 65, I'm in the midst of one. I've been teaching for over forty years, and even if I weren't struggling with health issues - mainly my lingering and mysterious leg ailments (another visit to my long-suffering doctor yesterday gave me no hope for a medical solution) - I'd also have to admit that I'm just tired. If I'm honest with myself, I just don't think I love teaching anymore, or at least I don't love teaching as much as I used to; even that is conditional, however, mainly because I don't think anyone ever loved teaching as much as I did). You can do many jobs in the wide world quite effectively if you don't love them, but I'm not certain that teaching is one of them. But if I retire, then what? I've defined myself - and measured myself - by my identity as a teacher for over forty years. What am I on the other side?