2 Score

Within a week I will have reached the 2 score mark in age. It hardly seems possible really when I feel like the longer I am on the planet and the more I learn, the less I really really know.
One thing I do know for certain is that if you would have told me even 20 years ago that I was going to be teaching in Korea I would have shook my head and laughed at the utter nonsense of the the thought.
My goal was always to teach in my hometown. To follow my mentors and give back what was given to me. To make my family proud and to become a caring and quality educator. I never was the best in class at anything but I knew how to try really hard and I figured that if I tried really hard at teaching then something good would come out of it. Nope, I was going to stay where my roots where so firmly planted until the end of my days.
Well fast forward to my life now. Do I regret it? No. Will I ever be able to go back to that dream I had all those years ago? No. Do I want to? I don't know. This was not the life that was ever modled for me and yet here I am planning travel to at least 3 different destinations in the next 9 months. Where are the roots that are so firmly planted four generations deep now?
I have selfishly given up a lot of things in my life for this opportunity but now I cannot imagine changing it. Except now I wonder. I wonder of course what tomorrow brings like most of us. Even more so I wonder what will happen in the next 2 score of my life if I am that lucky. Where will I be. What will I be doing. Will anybody be by my side? All fantastic and curious questions now. There will be love and loss. Friendships that come and go. But I will not be able to look back on my life and say that I haven't done something. Being an educator, no matter where you are is doing something.
If nothing else, I don't want to have set plans for my next 2 score years. I want to live them regrets and all. I want to feel young on the inside even if I am old on the outside.
Mr. Lincoln started one of the most influential and shortest speeches of his presidency with the words "Four score and seven years ago...." I just see more and more that I have a great deal yet to complete if I am lucky to make it to that age myself. When you are almost halfway there you come to realize that you best keep moving because there is a lot of living yet to be done.
With that...here is to my next score of years. Hopefully they are well lived and full of stories to share.