He asked me into his office. He had heard that I was leaving the company. Since we had worked together for years and had a good relationship he wanted to talk.
I suspect that he really wanted to try to convince me to stay. But when you leave a tech job behind for teaching, everyone knows there’s nothing the company can counter with. There is not a single thing they can offer. Everyone knows this. He certainly did. But deep down, I think he wanted to try.
“Why now?” he asked.
I was silent for a moment. You can ask that question of any decision you make. Why new shoes now? Why a haircut now? Why remodel the kitchen now? I wasn’t sure how to answer him.
“Why not two years from now?”
Why now and not later? The stuff off procrastination. I need to steer away from that line of thinking. In some sense I had already been dallying too long.
There was that evening in Michigan many years ago when my cousin said, “We need to figure out how to get you into teaching.”
There was that application I almost-submitted to the very alternative certification program in which I am now enrolled — an almost-application, because the economy was in deep recession, and the local school district laid off 300 teachers.
Why now and not later? I told him I didn’t know how to answer that, but I do.
Now, because itis already later. Now, because I don’t want to look back on my life years hence and ask myself, “Why didn’t I ever do that?”
So I’m doing it, and I’m doing it now.