I’m not all that old, approaching 60 next spring. I am alone although I live with my sister. She’s a racist. I am not.
Well… I read somewhere that you can’t be white, born in this country, and not be racist. I really believe that I’m not and I keep working on understanding how I may be. I hope for the “others” on my journey that that is enough of an effort. I had a family, but they’re gone now, too mad at me to care about me anymore. I deserve some of that and shoulder the blame for my part. They have their part too, but this isn’t about them. It’s about me.
Like most who write these posts, I am broke and in heavy debt. That’s why live with my sister, it’s because I can’t afford to live elsewhere. This too, is my fault, but it is what it is. I owe IRS, too and I didn’t file last year. I know that when I do file on the 15th, I’ll owe even more. I pay them monthly for having drawn down my 401k. It’s gone now, but so far I haven’t cost the taxpayers anything except for the care that I get at the VA. How does that work? You don’t take anything from the taxpayers (food cards, welfare, housing, unemployment compensation, etc) and yet you somehow owe them money for not having taken anything? I pre-earned my VA medical so I don’t feel like the taxpayers have paid anything there, at least not for me because I don’t go very much. By the way, the VA isn’t free. I copay like a lot of veterans do because I make “too much” money. I owe them too. I haven’t been able to pay them any money even though I make too much money. I’ll never understand these kinds of conundrums.
My family lives to their mid-80’s and then they die. That’s our genetics. At least one of my sisters think that our generation will live longer. I don’t think so, or at least I’m pretty sure I won’t. I’ve been sick with… and I’ve abused my body with prescribed drugs even though medical people say it’s ok, necessary and good for me. It isn’t good for me because I feel awful much of the time.
So what do you do when you are me? Do you struggle to put in another 20 or 25 years? I wish we all could live right up to that last moment just as we are now without aging and free of illness, but we don’t. The ugly truth of age is that you spend your last two decades in decline. By the time it comes to die naturally, what has the past 10-15 years been like? Are you even relevant anymore? I’ve seen family abandon elders and they have family. What about those of us who are alone? Young people don’t understand this, so please don’t tell me things like, “tomorrow you’ll feel better,” or “all you have to do is…,” or…
Oh by the way, I am #metoo. Who isn’t?
So what do I do? I keep looking at my life and I wonder why I want to work to owe another year of taxes and pay the last few years too. Why do I want to work? I am self-employed and I am doing well at it, but I’m not doing so well that money isn’t an issue. It’s because i do well that money is an issue. And my body isn’t getting any younger so that means I won’t be able to keep it up at some point, work that is… mine is fairly physical.
I keep having these thoughts that many of you have. I am not alone in this I am sure. I entertain the idea of killing myself, but so far I haven’t been able to figure out how to do it peacefully. I’m smart though, so that answer will come. In the meantime, I abandon this thought and forget to figure out how to do it peacefully. I guess my question is, when do these fleeting thoughts turn into something that isn’t fleeting anymore? When does that turn into a decision? Is is “safe” to question life and ones purpose or does questioning turn fleeting into final?