Well, when I got up this morning, I found out that my Hyde County Schools email account has been deactivated so even though I haven’t seen the first retirement check (which is supposed to be what makes it official), it appears that I am retired!
This is me, just after closing the door to my Ocracoke house for the last time. Heading for the ferry. And as I get in the car, what is playing on the radio but…
“What a wonderful world”! And what a wonderful world, indeed, my two years in Ocracoke have been.
As I backed down the driveway last August to return to Ocracoke, the song “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Every Thing There Is a Season)” by The Byrds was playing. That one was especially meaningful since that is what we chose as the theme for our senior yearbook in high school! And it seemed appropriate as I left Lewisville for what I suspected would be my last year as a teacher.
The night before I left Ocracoke, I took the golf cart up to the home of my friend and colleague; we kept it in the family– the math family, that is– Louise is our middle school math teacher.
And I walked back to the house to finish packing. Early the next morning, I closed the door and headed to the ferry for one last trip (well, I plan to return– a lot!– but one last official trip) west.
And I began the nearly eight hour trip back.
Two hours and forty-five minutes on the water. That’s a lot of time for reflection, particularly when your life is about to change in so many ways.
As I drove off the ferry in Swan Quarter, on the mainland, the Beach Boys started singing “Sloop John B” with the lyrics “Let me go home, let me go home; I want to go home, let me go home.”
(Folks, you can’t make this stuff up! Even if my radio is usually tuned to the 60s channel!)
Home. That means a lot of things. Boone, where I grew up and also where my children were born. Lewisville, where I reared those children and worked for most of my career. Where we have a house full of memories and “stuff.” And now Ocracoke.
So here I am back in Lewisville with a carload of that “stuff” to unload. Unpacking will take awhile. 
And here is the moon over Lewisville that first night. The same moon that was shining over Ocracoke, all those miles and hours away.
I really don’t know what I expected from this experience in Ocracoke. But I know that it was more than I ever dreamed it could be. I am forever changed.
bethdlayton 