Sometimes the Retirement Parties Come as a Bigger Shock to the System, as This Year Will Be Once Again For Me.

Phew. So many mentored me and helped me to understand the insanity is normal. It's how you process it. David Zera, Tracey Robert, Ginny Kelly, Pat Calderwood, Diana Hulse, Wendy Kohli, Barbara Wells-Nystrom, and now Anne Campbell. Remnants of yesterday....leaders trying to hold the work together in the best ways they knew how. 

Yes, yesterday was a celebration for Dr. Anne Campbell who is leaving her leadership of TESOL and her irreplaceable work for the Dean's Office, certification, and English Language Learners in the State. Always kind. Always funny. Always working tirelessly behind the scenes getting the work done, and always pulling out the daggers and darts thrown at her back (which is what happens as one finds success). 

It was a great turn out for the retirement gathering and it was wonderful to see so many mentors returning in support of her accomplishment. I always tell people when they go that I don't reach out because I want them completely FREE from the crazy. LIVE. LOVE. LAUGH beyond the chaos that is our work. I think the hard part of watching so many retire is to realize the new responsibilities you have to maintain a semblance of sanity with all the new people brought in and arriving....one by one, as they realize the reality of higher education, they too will need mentoring to keep their own healthy mindset.

It's hard.

I snapped a lot of photos yesterday, but this one turned out best and I was happy that the lighting worked. It was sort of surreal to know that is used to be a normal photo for the occasion, but it's been years since I've seen these three together. So many stories. So much mischief. A whole bunch of crazy. And always advice of, "if you want to survive here...this is what you need to do....."

...this is what I need to share with my own junior colleagues. Next year, I'll be the last standing member of ESTP from the days of when I was hired. There have been numerous shifts, tremendous overhauls, and definitely an overload of wonky (or PTSD, depending on how you look at it). 

Losing Anne will be tough, as she's the one I make eye contact with, talk to on weekends, and try to problem solve the bonkers with. All my best students have always come from her program and, in a way, it feels that a guardian angel is flying away. 

She deserves the best and I'm happy for her. I'm just biting my nails with worry for who I'll go to now. 

Eeks.