I know this applies to many people on here. I know it applies to me. What to do when you are in 45 overload and on a fixed income over 65. People who are well off can take a vacation or go shopping or turn off the squabbling over the chaos with all sorts of things, but what about the broke or fixed income folks? I have the guts and the fortitude to write this diary because it is so damned true these days.
Let’s start with climate change. Here in Florida, this has been one miserable summer. The rain is unbelievable in certain areas. You get up to rain and you go to bed with rain. You might have two days of sunshine that is not liquid and you don’t want to turn on anything that even resembles news but then you can’t escape it….not really.
You play phase 10 with your family ( the ones still speaking to you because you are not a Trumpster) . You cook foods that you find later are on some recall list and hope you don’t get too sick. I have a pool but you can barely keep it up due to the weather and chemicals that keep going haywire due to the changes in weather.
You look around and businesses are closing left and right no matter how the news tell you things are fine. You walk through thrift stores only to find out the closest one to you just went out of business. You play Family Feud or Wheel of Fortune and then get bored with that. You would go to a ballgame only to get rained out.
One is a bit afraid to spend any money because the unexpected comes into play everytime you do. Example..We have had near deaths and deaths all this year and our getaways are attending funerals. ( That tends to happen when you get past 65 or so). You try to stay optimistic but with the price of gas and the ugliness, it is hard. You soon find yourself doing the same things and your attitude is not all that great. If you live in a red area, it is hard to GOTV because you are still fighting the rain and even attending marches that are thin ..you get all kinds of hatred thrown in your face as you hold your sign.
You feel concern about things when you read of others paying extremely high medical costs and health failing and you can relate to the high cost of things.
I still help veterans but it is getting harder and harder to help when people don’t donate or seem to care. Forget picnics….That too will get rained out. Even walks are hard with all the showers and thunderstorms and flooding. A old movie is a good thing but no one agrees what to watch.. I mean watching a good comedy that you have watched a dozen times doesn’t really lift you up like it used to. Family doesn’t feel like family anymore because most of ours is on the Trump train and that is infuriating.
You work on the house. You plant flowers and they pretty much wash away, I tell you exactly what you do when you are broke and over 65. You play cards… You clean house...and watch the rain and write a few diaries. At the end of the month, you start checking the cupboard again.. This is not how I expected retirement to be. Not at all.
This administration is draining us not only physically, mentally but spiritually because it is hard to find anything that is not a strain. it strains your health and your pocketbooks but hey look, “ So and so is taking a cruise….There is a week long vacation coming up for someone...and the light bill just came in this week for you….Wow...That high? So you think again, What are we going to have for supper tonight. It is a strain I tell you. A hard strain.
You smile and it isn’t real. There is another morning...with the rain and here the broke pocketbooks and brokenhearted sit and wait for a break in the clouds. You do all you can do that doesn’t cost money because that is all you can do. You scrimp, you save, you give your support to candidates by volunteer work but deep down you worry about the vote being intefered for the midterms.
Is it just me or do all the seniors who are on fixed incomes feel this way? Do you feel cheated and angry? Can’t do anything about the weather..Can’t do anything about the monies...and sometimes, but not all the time you feel like YOU are the one imprisoned ...not the people doing this to us who should be.
This is not depression in the clinical form… This is a reality in the real form. This is our reality. We get excited when the rain stops for a bit. We get excited when we hear gas prices may go down. We hope we can get our windshielf wipers fixed and the oil changed even though the gas is too high to go anywhere. We hear bad news and we take it. We feel like we are trying to preserve our kids and grandkids future but we aren’t so sure it will pan out. We aren’t helpless but our time is taken up trying to make things better. I don’t feel defeat. I just wonder why we are so bound in oppression and where is our fun? I don’t even seen any fireflys anymore. Maybe they all drowned.
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