one of my fears

One of my fears, and right now i'm vaguely aware of quit a few, but bat them from the front of my brain when I see them peaking at me, like wacking at gnats or wasps, and they usually go back away.
But one of them is about the world of old white women.
It's not about old white women attacking me or shunning me or doing anything to me.
It's a fear of becoming a caricature of one.  A stereotypical one.  A giant thoughtless joke of one.
Not very politically correct of me, but a vision of Ruth Buzzi in Laugh-in comes to mind.  Hair net, drooping stocking, glum face.
But the appearance is not much of a fear.  Genetics decided to give me my paternal grandmother's visage at this age, a fearsome looking woman with permanent bitch face. (and if one more person tells me to smile, I'll wack them with my giant old lady purse).  Hair, long, again, as it grows too fast and it's always easier to grab a hairband than just about anything.  But, with it slowly changing from wavy dark brown to Einstein gray frizzle, it is not looking very well kempt at anytime.
The actual fear is of the insular world that so often overtakes women of a certain age.
Where suddenly, your whole world is your children and spouse, and if no spouse, just the children.
Where everyone that is not your child or your spouse becomes---scary, threatening, "oops, where is my phone, that man walking in front of my house is going to rob me, that car drives down this street every day, I think he is casing my house"

I know, you are wondering where such a weird fear came from.

But, I've seen it plenty.  Older white women that still work that won't let the housekeeper in the office to get the trash unless she can watch them.  Get in an elevator with a nonwhite person, the purse goes into a full body hug.  Walking down the side walk and a person in a hoody is coming towards you, run, run and scream.

My own grandmother, not the one I look like, the one that looked younger than she was and lived forever, wouldn't let anyone but relatives--and only those she liked and trusted for 4 generations do home repairs.  When she died, the sheet rock was falling off the studs.  You would have though she house was full of antiques (it was) worth millions(they were not--they were just her old stuff).

But, in less than a month, I've seen how the world could close in, become quite small and the bigger world very scary.  I've talked to my children, grandchildren, my children's spouses, the grocery store checkout clerk, the telemarketer, the teller at the bank, and none of those conversations were longer than 5 minutes.

In truth, conversations with family tend to be about "catching up",  "what have you been doing" "nothing, how about you".  If you want to make your family members eyes roll back into their heads, start a conversation about an actual topic, a book you are reading or a show you are watching, a political (plenty of those, these days) subject or a scientific finding just coming out.  They shut down so quick that I'm shocked more of them don't lose their balance and fall on their butts.

I do now know that asking grandkids about school is a one word answer--"nothing".  So much for teachers exciting them with new information.

But, how do you keep from becoming that fearful, timid old white woman, and I suppose she wouldn't have to be white, but most of the ones I met have been.  It's like a role, a caretaker with no one to take care of, a person with protectors that no longer has them around, a person whose mind has never had to think for itself vs is now not allowed to think for itself.

Or is it just the normal fear of death that has been attached to some "other".  Death is no longer a normal, natural part of life, but is rather an externally caused problem  that those people not like us are determined to inflict us with.

Or is it just a victim mentality--I should be rather safe from that.
Or is it a recognition of diminishing strength and cognitive ability.
Or is it a lifetime belief that women need to be protected and taken care of.

Nevermind, I'm going on amazon and finding a crossword puzzle book.

so.....

I'm picking up grandkids from school and watching them till a parent gets home--at their house 3 days a week.  It means I get to listen to NPR both ways 3 days a week.  With a prius, the gas is not much. It's my J-O-B!
With that job I'm painting and scanning in 100 years of family photos and giving them names/and dates when possible.  A long job with the only pay-off being that I can actually find them now.

I have plans to make a set of steps for the building out back and put the latch on it and put everything from the garage in it that will fit.  I have to find the leaky spot in the roof and seal it first. Then it needs to have the bottom closed in--concrete blocks most likely.  All things I can do.

Then clean out the garage, which, like the craft room or art studio or spare bedroom, whatever.... gets all junked out at the end of a year and needs organized again so I can use the space and find the tools and walk.

The house is staying cleaner and yard is mostly mowed, but for the rain which is determined to set some sort of August record this year. Mosquitos in August in the hottest part of the day is not normal.  But the high last week was about 90.  We have one day next week per forecast that is 97.  No 100+ weather this month, just humid, overcast, rainy, buggy swampish stuff.  They are predicting more snow than usual this year.

I no longer know what usual is.
Does spring start in April or February.
Is all the cold weather in December?
Is August the hottest month of the year?
I certainly can't tell by the last few years.

I also want to build a greenhouse out back with some raised beds.  A potting shed or puttering shed.
And fix up the balcony with an awning so I can paint outside even in the rain.
And clean off the fence line and remove the vines from the trees.
And repaint the front porch.
And change the stove top to a gas one--I've always hated electric stoves.

But  I'm  Slow.

Good thing there are no deadlines.

Week Three.

Week three is no longer a vacation.  

I have been off three weeks for surgery 4 times, childbirth twice, and was once unemployed 3 weeks after being fired.

It doesn't feel quite like that.

It doesn't feel real either--like it's permanent and planned---it feels like I'm waiting for something, a call or a letter or an email saying--"oh, by the way, you have to be at work at 0730 next Monday."

My sister, who has said she was retiring at 59 1/2 told me after I retired that "it's not like you, I don't hate my job"

She used to call daily griping about her job, moaning and cursing and.... then, without the educational requirements or much notice, they made her the manager and all that moaning and cursing left---it's still the most stressful job in the world.

It used to annoy me and crack me up that she thought her job was always more stressful than any job I had---most people see nursing as stressful: people dying on you and all that.  But no, the stress is in the banking industry.

So, she isn't retiring in 6 months at 59 and 1/2 years. She is waiting till she qualifies for Medicare, which is funny because she hasn't seen a doctor in 10-15 years.  

I get it.  I waffled a few times, Thought I should wait till I could get Medicare at 65.  Thought I should wait till the end of 2018 so I didn't risk having any tax glitches.  Thought I should wait till September 30 so I could (potentially) see a social security check within a month of my last day of work.

Ultimately, I left because I was afraid if there was not scheduled date of retirement, there would be an unscheduled last day brought on by my inability to shut the hell up.

I didn't hate my last out-of-home job.  It was actually my favorite of all them.  But the place was doing "groundhog day" and I couldn't keep nodding and smiling.

Every new management company came in (so far at 2 year intervals, the one previous to the last had announced a 99 year lease, but was gone in 2 years, so when the last one, the one that had offered to "take the resident program off their hands" while closing the hospital when the whole thing destabilized--read that as "we bought them as part of a larger purchase, with the intentions of shutting them from the get-go".

That was a full 13 years ago.  So, every two years, a new group comes in, gets rid of the excess employees, remodels the lobby, talks about the parking problem, talks about the elevator problems, talks about the roof leaking, and promises they are there for "the long haul".....and two years later, we have a new managing company and it all begins again.

What I have learned from this is:

     It is no wonder that countries with destabilized governments just keep having coup after coup until all the people try to flee the country.

     Progress is not possible if the leadership never tries to find out what is causing the problems in the first place.  We all have pet "fixes" that we think will make things better, but all the mustard plasters in the world will not heal a broken leg.

     Carpetbaggers always appear when it looks like they can improve their own lot while doing nothing.  In a hospital, those that were known by the previous management team to be butt-kissing slackers, can seem really helpful to the new team, I saw one of those go from "new grad" to "CNO" using that method in 10 years flat--and she said "I seen it"(no have, no had, my English teacher would have been horrified) all the time and couldn't write a complete sentence.  

So I'm in week three, and most of the work dreams or nightmares have stopped (other nurses also have nightmares about having too many patients and being unable to do everything to take care of them, so it's not just me).  

I painted yesterday.  Something from pinterest for decorating my new "greige" living room.  I would post a picture, but I'm having technical difficulty this morning.  

And I may get to finish mowing.  I don't remember ever having this much rain in August, but was counting on a nice dried up and dusty yard by now.

To boldly go....

where I've never gone before.
There is a voice at the back of my head whispering---"final countdown".
So, the goal is not a bucket list---I'm basically healthy and a good 15 years from the expected age of death.
I'm also not used to a lot of good luck.  My Grandmother died at 94 less than a month from her agreement to go live in a nursing home.  She had been living at home, on a huge ranch, alone with some assist from children and other relatives especially the last year when she lost a lot of vision to macular degeneration and had several strokes affecting her ability to find the right words.  It was frustrating, but she had no weakness, paralysis or paresthesia.  She just would call things something that was not what they were, and be aware of it.
In the general scheme of things, I'd take that after 93 years of basically good health.
My mother died at 75 after 11 years of slow but steady neurological decline from progressive supranuclear palsy.  It took 5 years to get a diagnosis because: 1. its not very common, and 2. she could not bear the thought of something happening in her brain, so she refused to see neurologist after the first one said he thought the problem was in her brain. (he was the first doctor I took her too, didn't go back until 5 years later when it was obvious that it was not: 1. allergies, 2. bad glasses, 3. ear infection, 4. eye problem, or 5. heart problem.  (yes, a heart problem sounds better to some of us than a brain problem--I'm not sure why a heart problem doesn't sound better than a brain problem to everyone).  It took 5 years after she died to remember her before she got sick.  It drew a line in the whole family's existence, before and after the disease.
My father died at 82, and while his last 2 years were bad, he died as he lived, with as little physician interference as possible.  He was past his expected years of life and outlived most of his male ancestors.
So, am I feeling morbid?
Maybe.
But my whole life (not just mine, but I'm speaking for myself) is about choices.  Every choice alters the available next choice, and time waits for no man, (or woman).  So I'm trying to figure out, what is next, what can I actually do versus what plans are pipedreams.  
1. I'm not going to become a prima ballerina--reality is, that was a 7 year old dream that had no idea what genetics and puberty could do to unhinge that dream.  I do think that 10 years of ballet was not a bad thing, just not a life goal accomplisher. (especially since performing in public made be physically ill)
2. I'm not going to be a world-renowned archeologist (the dream of 9 year old me)--in addition to not being able to walk more than 5 miles without my ankles hurting for days, I'm allergic to bullets and most of those digs are in war zones.  I CAN still read about other's finds and be grateful archeology exists.
3.   I'm not going to write the Great American Novel, mostly because I hate to proofread, and also because everyone secretly wants to write it, even people that have never written.  It's like we all occasionally have a great story land in our mind, but only those that can figure out how to get it onto paper (or computer) before it travels all the way through the mind and disintegrates like dust, can succeed at this.  Both my parents wanted to write one.  My mother wrote spirals full, but never finished a story.  My father had one and lost it on page 51.  (Until that book, I didn't think he could read and write, who knew that he was just already losing his visual accommodation and too stubborn to wear reading glasses till I was 20.  He was 38 when I was born, but no one every totally gets that their parents had a good bit of life before they were born.)
4. Last on the list is Artist, and that is not yet closed to me, although the competition is fierce if I feel a need for recognition or honors.  Since I've never had either of those 2 things before, and because most of the people I know and respect and am proud to have the acquaintance of are also artists that may or may not be well-known, I'm going to consider this to be the one path that is open to me as long as I care to travel it.
So
So, the goal is to go from occasional painter and potter to daily creator.
Daily.
So that the process is like a friend.
So that the release of those vaguely seen images in my head, in sound asleep or wide awake dreams becomes as common to me as getting up and going to work was.
Was.
Work people say, "do you miss work yet?"  Do you miss us?  and that is not the same question.  I miss them. But we no longer have a context.  I miss work not at all.  It was not MY life work.  It was a job.  And a very frustrating one, since it was required by law but not loved by those that like things the way they were.   It was always starting something, but never finishing anything---because the projects ran out of steam in the midst of all the push-back against change.  The others in the department understood that frustration and thus were important, not just for the job, but for the survival of the frustration.
That is why I'm keeping the blogs.
One to vent---and one to keep me from setting down in the recliner and binge-watching old tv shows while waiting for nothing.
It's time for me to take my last remaining choice--and live like a creator of art.

Wish me luck---I need it.                                                                                                                                      

One week into this new life.

I retired one week ago.
It feels like I took off work to clean house for my birthday dinner.
I've taken off a week to clean house before---so not too unusual.

It rained much of the week, which is pretty odd for August in Oklahoma.
I've also put up a lot of things I should have put up in the first place and polished a lot of stuff I hadn't polished in months (years? ever?).  I still had a deadline--1 week--to finish cleaning.

I'm guessing that new deadlines will be coming my way--IRS comes to mind.  I just got my last paycheck.  In the future, I'll get one check a month that is less than half of one work check.

 I figured out by Wednesday that I needed to track a budget.  My bills are mostly gone and I'm not a shopper, but I've never been a saver either.  I could get myself in trouble if I don't pay attention.

Wednesday Night I had my first work nightmare in a month.  I awoke anxious, then remembered I didn't have to work as a nurse anymore.  Amazingly, while nurses see their job as very important and high-stress, most people that have not worked healthcare think nurses have an overpaid and easy job.  I spent my last 10 years working on the education and quality improvement side of healthcare, and the people that go that route hate to admit it, but are also trying to find a place to get away from the stresses of providing healthcare without dumping the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.  Work nightmares are not rare among nurses.  It's a frustrating job, where higher's up frequently think challenging nurses is the same as trying to get them to do 18 hours work in 12 hours while not skipping anything or allowing anything unsafe to occur.  Most of those higher's up consider the nursing care and ancillary care to be "An unfortunately high business expense" in the world of healthcare.  Doctors are particularly prone to this attitude, considering that people go to the hospital to see the doctor--only.  My retort to this is to ask, "how much time did the Doctor spend with the patient, versus the time the patient spent with nurses and therapists and technicians.  If we only go to the hospital for Doctors, then we don't need hospitals, only Doctor's offices, 15 minutes is 15 minutes.

As the week goes on, the weird dreams are coming nightly.  Perhaps my subconscious mind is clearing out the cobwebs.  Retiring is major stressor on most of those life-stress monitoring things.  One of those that sound very positive but increase stress similarly to losing a loved one or moving a child to college.  Change is a stressor, fear of change, insecurity, everything is a stressor.

I made it through the clean-up, my son did the windows around the dining room just before the birthday party--it looked much better.  We all ate too much; talked about nothing with only a couple of times that we tried to wander into past exploits no one wants to be reminded of or politics.

Not bad.

So, this week, with no more deadlines on the horizon, I will start my days with some exercise and fun.  I do have a goal, though---get the craft room/art room navigable again.

I want to paint.  (I'm thinking that will stop thoses weird dreams!)

The First Day of My Second Life.

I worked my last day yesterday.
I've retired.
It is the second time I have been unemployed since before I graduated from college the first time and the first time I did it on purpose.
My income has officially become less than half--social security is a safety net not a replacement job.
My time has become my own.

I'm both ecstatic and terrified.

I have made a million lists, lists of expenses, lists of projects, lists of cheap meals that are not deadly or tasteless, and the list that is only written in my head.
That is the list of fears.  The list of fears is long and includes things too awful to consider and things too ridiculous to take seriously. It's a list that changes at the drop of a hat.

Example of things I want to avoid for the rest of my life:

• don't walk in front of a bus the day after you retire while texting.
• don't become an alcoholic that starts drinking with irish coffee and ends with a nightcap
• don't lie in bed, depressed and lonely waiting for someone to visit
• don't rush out to get a job as a Walmart greeter
• don't start volunteering at the place I retired from because I miss them.
• don't drive my kids crazy being needy
• don't drive my grandkids crazy being needy
• don't need a Doctor till after I can get Medicare.
• don't burn my house down learning to weld
• don't impulse spend my entire life savings on one good vacation (a discounted cruise would accomplish that---everyone wants to know about my travel plans, or my mission plans or where I'm moving after I retire---none of those apply, none of them.)

My father was a terrible businessman, terrible, but his favorite job was building and rebuilding things---cars, trucks, metal oddities---if you could weld it or solder it or bolt it together, it was something worth doing.  After a health scare that left him blind in one eye and no longer safe for the commercial job that he repeatedly complained about, he was depressed--in bed, nonverbal, cranky, and everyone knew, "he's not going to be here long".  Then, he got up, and opened his shop--his "rebuilder shop".  He was getting social security--age 63, and was not at the peak of his health, but he went back to work and he was his own boss.  He finally sold that business nearly 20 years later and went home to garden and make wooden birdhouses while being with my mother whose health had turned bad.

That is my goal.

I want my second life.

After 40 years in a profession that I knew I didn't like in the 3rd year of college, I'm going to start again.

I like history.

I like Art.

I like making things.

And, for those times I need to communicate, not feel alone, not wish for a friend that thinks about what I think about, worries about the same things and loves the same things, a person making their own journey in life, with no idea what that means or where that trip is going, I invite anyone that finds this to use this for the same things.  

Getting older is no picnic.  This country has worshiped youth for a while now.  Maybe TV and Radio did that, or maybe capitalism does that, or maybe, at a certain age, the perspective--looking back as much or more than looking forward, it just too disconcerting to those that "have their whole lives ahead of them". 

It is what I have now.  And memories are more valuable than just about anything.  

I don't want to be young again, though the old saying about "If I knew then what I know now" has some interesting potential for redo's.

I don't even want overs so I can choose the field and job that I think would have made me happier.

I'm not unhappy with who I am.  Maybe I needed to learn what I learned and go where I went to get here.

But, I do want to be the Captain of my future.  I want time to create some stuff.  I want time to decide what I want to do for me and what I want to give back to mankind or animal kind or whatever.  And I want time to get this stupid house cleaned and organized for the first time since I moved in, in a rush, with one day off, with kids, and school, and work, and extended family, for the first time in 24 years.

If you read this, and want to add or comment or write your own thing on this bottom of this, please do.

We only live twice--or once--or?