Life has a Way

My life is changing drastically ... for a change. I will have to be moving again in August and I do not know where I am going to land. It is a strange place to find myself: about to be far poorer than I knew I would be, having to let go of most of my things or find somewhere to store them, and not know where I will live.

So I have little creativity in me just now. I must say that my  life is rather a roller coaster. Some who have followed my blog might say that's understatement. I want to write. I sit down and I open my blog to write and find my mind a blank mass of panic. I find that when I sit to paint.

This stuff about trying to live in the moment and allow answers to gently show themselves is a lot harder than I like to admit. I panic then I get calm for a few days and accomplish a few things, then I panic again because I don't feel that the things I accomplish take me any closer to answers. I do things I will have to do no matter what.

Anyway, that is an update for those who still check back, who wonder where and how I am. I ride my bike and find the irony in just how powerful my legs are on the recumbent bike to nowhere, or to everywhere... How strong my legs are when they are working.  How strong my legs are when I do not have to be upright to walk. Even when I walk, for those short distances before my back screams for me to stop, my legs are powerful, as are my lungs and my heart. I continue to lose weight a teeny bit at a time. So long as the direction remains the same, I do not focus on that. I focus on the strength, on the power of my lungs to withstand up to two hours at level 14 out of 16, averaging more than 16 mph. And my heart returns to normal within two minutes, sometimes in a minute. I  can sing and sustain notes far longer than I could over a decade ago. For some reason, I have found I am a soprano after about twenty years of being an alto. This is the opposite of how this process normally goes.

But I cannot remain upright appreciably longer for it. My spine is my spine is my spine. The pain interferes or the medication does. Trade offs. I do what I can and it has helped my overall health.

It has not been enough to spare me from impending poverty. Yet others are worse off than I, so I don't ask for sympathy here. Or anything. I think I am simply talking about my life.  Sometimes writing about it makes it real in a different way; oddly enough, it helps mitigate the fear.

It's a strange process and one I may find myself writing about. The sudden need to downsize more than I have, to let go of things that are ALL connected with people in my life--my possessions are about 90 per cent gifts. I hope to join forces with one friend or another, perhaps both one day. But I have such limited funds now, this may not be workable for one or the other. I cannot pay what I thought was certain.

The details don't matter. I had reason to believe my income was secure, that an inheritance was a sure thing. To have both fall through without warning has been overwhelming and terrifying. Yet I cannot help but think of those who suddenly have lost jobs, as one friend is more than likely about to have happen to her. About families with houses they suddenly lose, with children to worry for and about. I am a boomer who was disabled for over half of the years of normal productivity. I DID work my way off of disability twice in my life. I DID do the best that I could and that's why I have what I DO have I guess. Yet we have the messages thrown at us constantly that we are failures if we are poor. Takers, not makers. And there is nothing less valued than a mateless woman over fifty in our culture.

I wish I could find a way to work even ten hours a week for someone who might see value in me. Who might consider me worth even $20/hour to write copy for their company publications, or the website, to help with administrative issues, to use any of the skills I have acquired.

I am not over yet. I want to write a song for us boomers. For those of us who didn't "make it," who have physical limitations but who feel we still COULD contribute. Where do we find jobs that are fewer than 20 hours? I know that there are those jobs out there. They are not likely to be advertised, though. Those are the positions or opportunities found through personal networking, not general.

So I will network. I will try to figure out a way to supplement what is so tiny an income from Social Security. If I earn what is "allowed" for too many months, I would lose a monthly amount that is higher. It is a screwed up system, their "incentives" to work. I took those risks when I was younger, trying to make sure I was earning FAR MORE than what I was paid through disability to make up for the loss of tax-free income. But I am going on 62 now. But I could nearly double my income if I could work just 10-15 hours a week, doing what I know how to do. Tutoring. Writing. Reviewing non-profit administrative documents for accreditation. Advising.

I'm not over yet. I am not over as a  woman; I am not over as a writer and an artist. I do not WANT to be over as a contributing member of our society.

I am, however, afraid. I have faced poverty before, but now it is here. Unavoidable. At an age where I truly don't know how to keep that freight train from running me over. And I know there are millions more in our country like me, who have tried. We may have made mistakes along the way, but sometimes people make mistakes and avoid the consequences. I have been lucky. And I still am. I have many people in my life who love me and whom I love.

It is a lesson in swallowing pride. It is a lesson in learning to be honest at a bedrock level, even if it feels humiliating. I don't like it. I don't want others to feel this way. When someone says, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle," I want to scream at him or her and throw things. a) This ain't from God. b) Sometimes life IS more than we can handle. I don't particularly feel that this holds lessons that will make me a better person, thank you very much. It simply seems like more ICK to have to cope with.

That said?

I'm not over yet. I don't know what the hell that even means just now. But I'll try to get a grip. I will try to find whatever I had to find in the hospital, whatever I had to find when my husband left, when my daughter died ... when my brother died, when my sister died, when I faced losing my house. I will try to find whatever my incredibly strong friends have found when THEIR children have died or they lost THEIR homes or faced illnesses.

They are not over yet either and they probably haven't figured out what the hell that means, either.

So. I guess I will try to write about this latest chapter as I go through it. And I will try to do this living in the moment thing for the next month or two, while I cannot know where it is I am about to land. Several of us have suddenly been catapulted into the air, very, very high--and we haven't a clue, ANY of us, how or where we will land.

I'm already editing here, a moment. I think I keep returning to this "I'm not over yet" thought in its greater context. My very small but scary life is a reflection of far too many lives, I think. And I DO know it is not just women my age who are going through this.  We boomers are a huge segment of the population that contains some of the most affluent people in the country as well as some of the poorest. But, just as other generations don't want to be considered as a lump, I'm finding myself having a visceral response at times. We are about to bleed the economy dry.

Well, some of us would just as soon go on contributing, albeit in a small way. And even if it meant my whole pathetically small Social Security income were taxed again, okay. I don't CARE about that. You know, we do not necessarily want to be side-lined. I know a man who, at just about 60 walked away from a job in a company he helped START because he was so sidelined, and landed a job in the cutting-edge of his field, focused on an area he'd encouraged the backward company he'd been in to explore. It made me so happy to know that his experience and his brain got him there, especially nowadays. But this is an exception, though it shouldn't be.

So I guess I will wade through whatever I am doing, perhaps hoping giving testimony to this small life will resonate with others who may be going through similar experiences. Perhaps someone will think twice about mining the experience of us "elders." I don't know. Or perhaps someone like me won't feel so alone, as I have felt less alone reading other stories.

Perhaps what I am really feeling is "WE'RE not over yet." But all I can write about for now is my own life, and perhaps something truly fine will come out of desperation. It has for others; it can for me. It can for my friends.

In the meantime, I hope you who read this are okay. I haven't been reading blogs much. Panic seems to paralyze at times! I escape in other ways lately. I need to focus, but... we shall see. It's hard to be this vulnerable WHILE something is happening. It's far easier to do that in retrospect. So I'll just see where this takes me for now.

Thanks as always to those of you who read this.  I DO still believe that things can be all right and that an answer or two can and perhaps will present themselves. It's up to me to get myself grounded, in the moment, and at piece so that I can recognize an answer if and when it DOES present itself.