facing fear and (sort of) doing it anyway

[Hopalong]

Hi folks,
Just wanted to tell y'all what I'm up to. Pretty briefly, or I'll use it as yet another excuse not to keep going.

With a lot of help from a $-savvy friend, I finally have a clear picture of exactly where I am. Without boring anyone (and sensitive to the reality of how profoundly fortunate I am compared to some friends here, which often makes me cringe), here it is.

I have four months to find a new FT job or then I will have exhausted my reserve and have to begin eating through my small pot of retirement savings. This will be bad. My house isn't paid for, though if I hadn't lost my previous job/s, I would've been within striking distance. And, without a new FT position, I will face four or likely more years of a lot of uncertainty.

I have real fear of inadequate resources for old age. It haunts me and disturbs my sleep.

So, I am trying. But not hard enough.

When I am afraid, my ADD gets much worse and my desire to escape the process rises. That leads to time wasted and a spiral of anxiety.

I am doing what I can but very fearful that time will run out and so will my savings. There is no way around this.

In the back of my mind, constantly, is that I'm 66 and in a community where loads and loads of educated young people with a solid decade of good experience (as opposed to my three decades) are competing for every posting I'm applying to.

It's different. My confidence has been shaken.

So that's where I am and why I haven't been writing here at any length lately.

Love to everybody,
Hops

[Twoapenny]

I understand the worry about not having enough to be comfortable in the later years, Hopsie.  It worries me and I'm a way off yet so it's a perfectly valid concern!

Is there anything else you could do if need be?  In terms of work, I mean, I'm just wondering if there are any self employed things that would generate a bit of cash, even if it just brought you a bit more time?  Pet sitting, dog walking, baby sitting, a hobby that might make a bit?  Space for a lodger, anything else you can sell, any outgoing that can be trimmed a little?  Clutching at straws a bit, I know, it just seems so unfair that you have this great weight to carry when there have been so many other weights to carry as well.

I wish I had a wand.  If anyone deserves a bit of an easy ride now it's you.  I am keeping everything crossed that something comes up soon xxxxx

[Gaining Strength]

I hear your fear.  You've titled this post perfectly.  You are in a difficult town but you are a gift.  You will get that break.  You deserve it Hops.

[Hopalong]

Thank you Tupp, ((((Grits)))) and GS...so much.

Tupp, I will do things like that after retirement but my energy now is limited, so it needs to go toward finding FT work. I could burn through a lot of energy finding and managing small fixe$ otherwise. I've got some ideas for PT, irregular work but mainly need a regular salary. If I can't find a FT job then there'll be no choice but to go from gig to gig, etc. I've squeezed expenses as tightly as I can. Thanks for the suggestions though!

GS, I'm grateful. And miss hearing from you. Glad to see you've posted!

xo all
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Thank you Tupp, ((((Grits)))) and GS...so much.

Tupp, I will do things like that after retirement but my energy now is limited, so it needs to go toward finding FT work. I could burn through a lot of energy finding and managing small fixe$ otherwise. I've got some ideas for PT, irregular work but mainly need a regular salary. If I can't find a FT job then there'll be no choice but to go from gig to gig, etc. I've squeezed expenses as tightly as I can. Thanks for the suggestions though!

GS, I'm grateful. And miss hearing from you. Glad to see you've posted!

xo all
Hops

You are a smart cookie, Hops, so it makes sense that you've already looked at all the options and I think most people's situations require a full time salary to make life easier.  Am sending bucket loads of love and good vibes your way in the hope that something suitable comes up for you xxx

[lighter]

Ack, I thought I responded to your OP, Hops.

I wrote that you're smart to utilize resources around you...... people with sound advice, and information to help resolve the situation.

If I had to choose between a newbie grad and someone with years of experience in my industry......

I'd choose the person who could teach me things.  Not the person I had to train.

Honestly, if feels like you'll land on your feet, Hops. 

::Sending you energy, luck, and prayers::

Lighter

[sKePTiKal]

Hang in there Hops. You're doing what you have to for you.
Someone once said, courage is being afraid, and doing it anyway. Well, this time around it would be scarier if you WEREN'T still trying.

The energy thing is something that's really real. But see if there aren't some places where you have energy leaks into emotional pools... (for wont of a better image/word)... where you use up your energy treading water & just dealing with the emotions.

Maybe talking out those emotions would help?

[Hopalong]

Thanks for reminding me how nice air-dried laundry is, Grits! I love that. I have space for an outside rack or line, and could certainly do indoor drying too.

I do make my own laundry detergent! That's been my favorite frugality so far. Partly because it's ridiculously easy. AND sustainable, because you use something like a 3-gal. plastic kitty litter container (got one from a cat-lady friend) over and over...no repeated plastic awful jugs being trucked to you across the country and even better, no lugging them home from a store. It costs about 3 cents a load and works perfectly. Only and very minor downside is that without the (toxic) surfactants, it will gradually create a soap ring at the top of the washer. Solution is simple--couple times a year I simply scrub that off lightly with baking soda. Which takes about 15 seconds. I mean, sheesh.

To make 3 gallons (a gel) takes less than 10 minutes. Here's the recipe:
--Grate one bar of soap (like Ivory or a cheap deodorant soap) into 4 c. simmering water, stir until dissolved
--Dump 1 gal. hot tap water into your container
--Mix the soap solution into the hot water
--Add 2 more gal. hot tap water (I never carry the whole thing, just take pitchers of the hot water around to the laundry area and pour it in there)
--Add 1 1/2 cups washing soda (Arm & Hammer, in detergent aisle, usually bottom shelf--NOT baking soda)
--Add 1 cup borax powder (same aisle)
--Stir them in with a long spoon
--Put on lid and leave overnight to gel

Use one cup per load.

I agree that frugality is fun, I love the simple ways we can cut back not only on $ but on consumerism generally.

Hugs,
Hops

[Hopalong]

I get that kind of nostalgia, Grits...
My father's family was very well-off but my mother's was dirt-poor.
She grew up in a family of 10 on the plains during the Dust Bowl and Depression, so even though after she married her life was upper-middle middle class and secure, she retained a lot of household habits that conveyed intuitive sustainability. She didn't know about the third "R" (recycling) but she did Reduce (not much of a consumer) and did Re-use.

Some of the "antiques" I like best are the old, simple things. My nightstand is my maternal grandmother's sewing machine stool (lift off the top to see the spool pegs), stuff like that. My kitchen bookshelf was built by my grandfather...it has a protective glass door. Because books were precious and on the plains, dust was everywhere.

Things like cotton cloths used to clean, and reused and reused (rather than discarded sponges)...clothing repaired rather than discarded, her darning egg and sewing kit...and the beautiful clothing she made.

These are good memories of Nmom. Without the "N", just being a woman who brought a legacy of value from her resourceful family's dignity.

[Twoapenny]

I get that kind of nostalgia, Grits...
My father's family was very well-off but my mother's was dirt-poor.
She grew up in a family of 10 on the plains during the Dust Bowl and Depression, so even though after she married her life was upper-middle middle class and secure, she retained a lot of household habits that conveyed intuitive sustainability. She didn't know about the third "R" (recycling) but she did Reduce (not much of a consumer) and did Re-use.

Some of the "antiques" I like best are the old, simple things. My nightstand is my maternal grandmother's sewing machine stool (lift off the top to see the spool pegs), stuff like that. My kitchen bookshelf was built by my grandfather...it has a protective glass door. Because books were precious and on the plains, dust was everywhere.

Things like cotton cloths used to clean, and reused and reused (rather than discarded sponges)...clothing repaired rather than discarded, her darning egg and sewing kit...and the beautiful clothing she made.

These are good memories of Nmom. Without the "N", just being a woman who brought a legacy of value from her resourceful family's dignity.

It's nice that there are some good memories in there, Hops.  My mum was very thrifty and again, it came from growing up in a time when you repaired things instead of buying new ones and things were made to last, not to be replaced in two years' time.  We've become a very throw away society and it's not a good thing, in my opinion.

[sKePTiKal]

Hops, question:

Do you find a sense of peace & purpose in living those sustainable life choices? Like, you're helping to keep that knowledge alive to pass on? It's an odd question, I know, in the face of the topic at hand here.

Even some of the smallest habits in this category, I sometimes feel are in danger of extinction. Things I totally take for granted that are just "common sense"... but people had simply never known/seen before. Like washing out a ziploc bag to re-use it for another purpose? People tell me they've never heard of that before!!   

Like you, my connection(s) to that self-reliant lifestyle are older & well-established these days. Doesn't mean we can't learn new tricks, though. I have been most impressed to see a new wave - an echo maybe - of this philosophy and lifestyle in my D's generation. Through that, I've learned that Baltimore actively supports Urban Farming. Her fiancee's sister raises chickens, for instance. Within city limits. (She doesn't EAT chickens, mind you... but it's a step in the right direction.) And they're experimenting and coming up with some new ideas.

One of the big strategic weakenesses of trying to herd people into large urban areas is that the source of food is always so far away. Doesn't take a whole lot to shake the food security of a system that's over-centralized -- whether through GMOs, crop failure, drought... or a transportation issue. Baltimore's history is filled with ethnic neighborhoods, and one of the prime characteristics of them, were that the backyards of those row-houses were often extensive gardens.

But I am surprised at how little people know about growing plants. Even after reading all the "Dummies" books... they still come back and ask the most basic questions that I've realized can only be learned by watching someone who ALREADY knows, this is how much of this fertilizer is applied... or what that bug is and how to keep it from ruining your taters... even how much to water. Then imagine the shock, when they're successful beyond their wildest dreams and have bushels of tomatoes to either dry or can. Canning.... oh, the thousands of questions involved in that.

The simple lifestyle without so many "modern" or "post-modern" complications seems attractive to me these days. Maybe there's a path there, in that for you too - given your background; your professional career. (It's the old is new again thing, I guess.)

[Hopalong]

Yes, I find peace in the necessities of frugality sometimes. A comfort in rejecting mindless consuming. From plastic bags to "new" when it's not needed. (I wash them too and carry tote bags in the car...but too often forget to take them inside a store.)

There's a whale-load of difference between trendy "Voluntary Simplicity" practiced by people who are economically secure, however, and those for whom it's not an epiphany or based on sustainability consciousness...but the grinding only way they can get by.

When I buy my clothes at Goodwill a couple of times a year (because long ago I read about the crappy construction, and the overseas sweatshops, and the planned obsolescence, and rejected "seasons" and "updated fashion" for classics)...I always see families with children, and old folks, who are not downwardly-mobile degree-holders like me who will still survive however modestly because I have insurance, but people who have basic needs that just aren't being met. I shop there because the manufacturing and shipping and exploiting damage is already done. I'm simply keeping some garments out of the waste stream for a while longer.

But it sure does feel better than "new" -- I find most modern stores kind of obscene. Malls strike me as the slow death of culture. The glazed expressions and overstimulation.

"Stuff" fills that hole in the spirit for many, temporarily. Meaningful work, a decent paycheck, and realizable hopes for your kids, are harder to come by for too many these days.

Because I have a deep, sunny double lot, self-sufficient urban gardening (even chickens) are completely possible in the space. I'm frustrated that I've let myself become so physically deconditioned from years of sedentary work, though. I'm not sure my years of dreaming about a sustainable urban home can be realized with this body, unless I find the will to become fit again.

I've been so profoundly distracted (Nmother-care decade, ADD, and too many large losses) for so many years that I lost a lot of the passion I had had for building that sort of life. I'm keeping things very simple but not as a project--just as it's all I can manage.

love
Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Well, I'm right there with ya, Hops - I don't disagree or differ in any of that description you wrote about yourself. But the part I want to respond is the last bit:

Because I have a deep, sunny double lot, self-sufficient urban gardening (even chickens) are completely possible in the space. I'm frustrated that I've let myself become so physically deconditioned from years of sedentary work, though. I'm not sure my years of dreaming about a sustainable urban home can be realized with this body, unless I find the will to become fit again.

I've been so profoundly distracted (Nmother-care decade, ADD, and too many large losses) for so many years that I lost a lot of the passion I had had for building that sort of life. I'm keeping things very simple but not as a project--just as it's all I can manage.

I've had to face this one myself and TRY to wrap my head around it. It's still a work in progress, I guess. Motivations, the keys to unlocking the desire and will to change this, and the stick-to-it-iveness to really change it are so different for each of us. My problem is the desire part of the equation - the wanting - and that lifelong programming to always put myself last on the "fulfillment" list. It's way more complicated than giving myself permission! LOL.

The mind-body connection is more important and more mysterious than I think I appreciated -- even when I was really active with tai chi. Maybe it's more to do with consciousness (or the soul/spirit) than it appears "rational" to the western mindset. I'm still learning and un-learning a lot about that whole giant area of life.

But at this point in my own situation, inertia is the main problem. Physics; and nothing fancy about it either. There is a certain amount of energy required to lift the quantity of mass of my ass, out of my chair and go DO some things... that will better my situation in a way that helps me begin to get enough traction... to build up momentum.

This is where I can borrow emotional energy, to activate the body & and focus the mind too. I still get mad at myself for "not feeling like doing that"... but these days it's tempered with a little kindness and patience. But there's a new energy: fear at work now too.

My fear is based on watching how quickly Mike deteriorated - and his spirit detached from his body - simply because he sat down and didn't feel motivated in any way shape or form, to get up and do something. For himself. I knew - because I'd felt it; experienced it - that if I just TRIED to do what I could, on day 1... and stopped before I completely wiped my physical energy out... and then do it again the next day... and the next... I would get stronger, the work would be easier, and I would have more stamina and resilience. It wouldn't take me a week to recover from 1 days work.

I'm afraid of boring myself to death, too. The terminal ennui of nihilism, maybe. (This seems fashionable in some circles these days again; last time I saw it was during the 70s "stagflation" days.) But that's a digression from the other side of this bush I'm talking my way too. LOL.

It dawned on me this week - coming back from another "rest & play period" of a couple days - that I actually feel better when I do some of those things on the list I keep, of the things that are necessary to getting me where I've said I want to go. So that, in a broad general way... my time, mental focus and spirt (intention) are all focused right now on giving my Self, what I want. If I'm not doing at least something on that "list"... I lose momentum, don't have any confidence that I CAN do what I think I want to do... and just generally don't give a rat's either. I can do one thing -- and STILL rest up the old bod, let the mind come to a still point, and get enough sleep to refresh myself.

I still don't "want much", materially... so that list involves a lot of purging right now. But, something I discovered camping is that when it physically requires my whole day, to provide food and shelter for myself... a primitive level of "simple and plain" living... everything about my mood lightens, tension drops to such a low level it almost feels bad, because it's so un-experienced previously, and the thought of returning to "civilization" feels awful and wrong. Like it's just the wrong way to live.

Well, THAT was a ramble, now wasn't it? LOL. Sometimes, I think I do that, just to see what turns up, when I turn over rocks. Sure hope some of those observations have something that fits with your journey too.

[sKePTiKal]

OK, re-reading that... there is a thread of meaning in there that makes sense in response to that last bit of your post. But it's just not coherent enough for words... LOL. I hope you like puzzles, Hops. LOL.

Maybe if I look at it tomorrow, I'll figure out what I was trying to say.

[Hopalong]

I loved these posts of yours, Amber (and yours too, GS, Tupp and Lighter--thank you all for the arm-around-shoulders feeling you always give me). I'm sorry it took me so long to acknowledge.

Been a Titantic battle to hoist "the mass of my ass" up to get in motion again lately.  I had repair guys in my house off and on for 2+ weeks and the process of letting them in (and out, and in, and out) with the dog going berserk Every Bloody Time, and getting a massive nasty cold at the same time, so I was feverish in the bed (with dog, when she wasn't being a hysterical sentinel) for days, coughing my lungs out while the repair dudes clunked back and forth..

Oy. Two weeks I could've skipped. But as of this morning and the last coat of paint on the re-replaced window trim, water-damaged wall gutted to studs and rebuilt...new siding on and well blended...and really, decent and courteous treatment from all crews for the most part...anyway, as of this morning THAT'S over. Wheeeeee-ewww.

And the hopeful news is...I have two possibities for earning some money. Neither is solid yet, but I had a second interview today with a local business owner who wants to expand online and told me plainly that I'm so knowledgeable that she really wants to work with me. Remains to be seen whether she'll offer FT, and how soon, and for how much. Fingers, toes, and all remaining hairs are crossed.

Second possibility is I've been offered a modest ghost-writing contract for a small (100 page) book on a new procedure...it awaits the fancy doc signing the contract with the publisher. Publisher thinks the guy will do it, but he's been ambivalent before, so he (Pub.) is waiting to see. If the doc "author" signs on, I've got the gig. (Did another similar book for that publisher --with three doc-"authors" about a decade ago, went well.) I'd enjoy doing it again but in honesty would prefer that the local job (if FT) came through, as I'm sick of divided mental attention and writing my guts out for somebody else's interests rather than my own. The consumer-medical book would be very very hard work, the local business stimulating and even somewhat fun, but not draining in the same way as the lonesome and tedious medical stuff.

Please send some vibes, anybody...this is a pretty key juncture for me.

Love,
Hops