Please don't get me wrong. I loved teaching, but I am tired. In fact, having stated that more than once, I began to think about the word "retirement." (I have time now to ponder and ruminate.) You see, I have taught reading and phonics for most of my life. We've studied prefixes, suffixes, base words, and Greek and Latin roots. So upon close examination of the word "retirement" something just didn't seem right.
Let's look at the base word tire. It means to grow weary. I looked it up to be sure. I even did a search of Latin roots, just to be sure there wasn't one for tir- or perhaps tira- that had something to do with relaxation, or joy, or euphoria. I found nothing along those lines. So I moved on. Next I looked at the prefix re-. This is one of the first prefixes taught and I was certain it meant again. I researched that just to be sure. So putting the two meanings together (It's not rocket science) I deduced that retire means to grow weary again. Determined to see this through to the end I identified the suffix -ment. The meaning of which is the act or process of. Adding this to what I already knew, I concluded that retirement is the act of growing weary again.
"Well, that's a bummer," I thought. Half the reason I'm retiring is because I am exhausted, and now you tell me this idyllic status I've worked years to achieve is simply about getting tired again. Is there no justice in the world!
And so I decided, and I'm proclaiming it now. I am not retired, I am "untired." I won't be getting up at 5:30 A.M. any more. (Well, I might if I have a 6:00 flight to Tahiti.) I won't be staying up late writing lesson plans or grading papers. I won't teach all day and then have parent-teacher conferences through dinner time. No matter how I look at it, that sounds like "untired" to me. And beyond that, if I should find myself a little weary of reading, gardening, playing bridge, writing, sewing, painting, sitting at the beach, or whatever; I can always take a nap and wake up "untired."
