{"id":1698,"date":"2016-03-16T07:19:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T14:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2016-03-16T07:19:06","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T14:19:06","slug":"a-new-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=1698","title":{"rendered":"A New Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1699\" \/><\/a>Not because of the things I\u2019m doing now\u2014but because of the things I\u2019m not doing\u2014<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s why I\u2019ve decided to retire. Yesterday, Charlotte and I called old friends we haven\u2019t seen in 20 years. There were stories, familiar laughs and a few tears. 20 years!<\/p>\n<p>Which is about as long as I\u2019ve been teaching college English and hanging out with these amazing students. The things I\u2019m doing now\u2014they\u2019ve been a dream come true, and I\u2019m glad I gave them the best of my adult years.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s time for what I\u2019m not doing\u2014reconnecting with good friends, one-on-one time with grandkids, more moments with a patient spouse who, once again, had to find things to do this week while I graded yet another stack of papers.<\/p>\n<p>And writing\u2014I sat down the other day and listed titles to a half-dozen books I want to pen. And I\u2019m haunted by the fear I\u2019ll never get to write them.<\/p>\n<p>Yep, it\u2019s time for the new dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not because of the things I\u2019m doing now\u2014but because of the things I\u2019m not doing\u2014 It\u2019s why I\u2019ve decided to retire. Yesterday, Charlotte and I called old friends we haven\u2019t seen in 20 years. There were stories, familiar laughs and a few tears. 20 years! Which is about as long as I\u2019ve been teaching college [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1700,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions\/1700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}