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Hopalong:
The only unexamined option I can think of, Tupp, would be to build a small wing onto my house with a bathroom and 3rd bedroom that I could rent to a roommate. Currently it'd be hard to share my house with another person I'm not close to. Two BR (one being my office/study) and 1 small bath. I don't think it's rational to assume I could do it now. The kitchen, quite small, would be a challenge to share. A housemate would have to be somebody transient, I think. A student or such. Right now, the loss of privacy and taking in a stranger would be more stress than it's worth.

However, to add a small wing would cost half my retirement savings, which are skimpy as is. So I am just going to try to rebuild my health and keep on living until whatever happens, happens. This week I started taking walks again and am more active in the house than I've been all winter. Bought a new scale too, to keep on track. Otherwise, get more intentional about living more in the present, rather than scaring myself all the time about tomorrow. I think the most important investment I can make is in other people -- getting more involved in caring for others and focused more on the community.

I heard you mention retirement the other day, and no pension. I hope there will be some way for you to keep on saving and keep up your walks and healthy eating too. I guess the old saying "health is your greatest wealth" is really true.

I remember you asking me about co-housing, community etc stuff...and the co-housing here is out of reach financially for me. There's no other option for aging with others than old-age communities that cost currently, on average, more than double my income. I am actually very lucky to be where I am. The only drawback is isolation and fear of getting really old alone. I will try to set up some financial manager for myself who could take over if I become disabled--the stroke and subsequent brain events have forced me to think about it lately. (My best chance of safe financial management if I'm unable would be a good person from my church, I think.) Right now, I just have everything I own in trust for my daughter, so if a health catastrophe happens, a nursing home couldn't come after the house and take all my assets. At that point, to get long-term care one has to "spend down" assets to own no more than $5,000 total. Then the Medicaid program will pay for your nursing care in a home (but my fears of the quality of that care are huge--having seen too many oldsters drooping in wheelchairs in a hallway all day and subject to neglect or worse). The other option which I'm extremely reluctant to consider, would be to sell my house one day to pay for a care home for myself, and I really want to leave it to my D, who'll never have her own home otherwise. All one can hope for is a quick end but you never know. Plan as best I can and release the outcome! (And also just try to think about it LESS. Once I have all the paperwork reviewed and rationally prepared, that's the best I can do.) I know you wrestle with all this stuff too, and with a much bigger concern than I have, for your son.

I ordered veggie seeds yesterday and plan to start some indoors when they come, and begin clearing weeds out of the veggie beds. Will add compost to the beds and do what I can to garden like I mean it this time! Minimal but satisfying.

hugs
Hops

I realize I inherited a lot of my mother's anxiety, and it's a mental habit I want to work against more consciously. ADD doesn't lend to meditation easily but I might add that too. Although at the hospital the other day my BP was super LOW. Odd.

sKePTiKal:
One thing I know for sure, is a person can't know for sure all the details of what any imagined/researched/perceived future is. It can all look perfect when you get there - but life simply can't resist bringing up challenges, the things we thought were impossible, etc. So, making the best of what you've got is a good life skill too.

Because you could charge a roommate rent, it's possible you could recover & add savings to the cost of building a wing. But building costs right now are going up like crazy. Know that for a fact. And then, there's my recent experience of having people live here - the first time I've ever shared "home" like that. And while Hol was helpful and knows my preferences from growing up with me... no one else felt obligated to do things to my liking, and did just as they liked. One of the reasons I'm on the housecleaning binge is to "reclaim" the whole house as "my space". And put it the way I like to keep it. Even tho Hol has some good ideas, they're HER ideas; not mine. Which is why being able to build her a house was a better solution, because I was able to do it.

I think you can enjoy your single life - and continue to date, as interesting men show up Hops. More of an "all of the above" approach... who knows what will happen? Everytime I tried to pin down an identity or description thereof that was "me" - some impertinant younger person would come along and present incontrovertible evidence that I was also "this"; "that" idea was wrong; and proceed to lecture me on sticking labels on myself. LOLOLOLOL. Fortunately, she lets me return that favor.   ;)

Lots of new stuff shows up in this stage of life. Comtemplating one's own end of life is just one of them. But I have a sneaking suspicion that subconciously our feelings/thoughts about that inevitable experience also color how we live those remaining years of life too. Could be a topic for a thread, probably. There's all the practical, legal side of things - and then there's a whole unexplored territory of cultural ideas, the spiritual side, etc that color and energize our fears. Even Hol & I cycle around to this topic from time to time... and I'm getting the sense that some of it is helping her deal with her anxiety more than mine. My plan so far, consists of continuing to stay as engaged with life - and it's curveballs - and to continue learning, growing, and "seeing" enough to not depress the living shit out of myself and put myself in the "give up" space. But that choice was formed over years and lots of experiences; it suits me and my wacky creative and non-conformist personality. I figure it's got to be a whole easier to be "eccentric" the older I get, simply because the social assumption is I'm past being important or useful to society. To me, this feels like true freedom to BE.

HA! Hold my beer and watch this...
:D

Twoapenny:
Well first, I am still laughing at Skep trying not depress the living shit out of herself :)  Lol, there is a T shirt slogan in there :)  And yes to being eccentric, mad as a box of frogs, not giving a crap what other people think and all of that as well :)

I do hear you though, Hopsie, and the situation is similar here (I just wondered if you had other possibilities in place over there but it seems not).  It's somewhat baffling to me that we've created a society where people are living longer than ever before, thanks to science and medicine, and where we're all encouraged to make work our primary focus and own a home, but then are expected to live out our old age with little or no help and our only source on income being the home we live in.  I feel there must be a better way to do this!  There is a balance, isn't there, between living for the moment and focusing on now, but also trying to put some sort of safety net in place as we know the state sponsored one is full of holes :) I do like the sound of you focusing on health and living life, though.  I can understand having someone else living with you may not be an easy option.  I think it's frustrating when, having spent so many years caring for others, as you have, there's no-one around to care for you.  It feels like an unkind joke has been played.  But I will keep everything crossed that good things and experiences are coming your way, Hopsie, along with warmer weather and less threat from Covid xx

Hopalong:
I'm getting a lot friendlier with my inner eccentric or wacko or just peace-loving person too.

Still seeing M about once a week, nice dinner, lots of chat (mostly his), and it's a pleasant but less-interesting routine than it used to be. I see more slivers of th darker side of his personality more clearly, as well as my own. Neither of us is glowingly wonderful, and as long as I'm compassionate, it's okay to continue for now anyway. I'm almost relieved to be looking with clearer eyes at areas of incompatibility that are good reasons for me not to wish it'd turned into a lifetime.

But while I'm here....

I loaned him a book by a dear friend and mentor and literary doyenne in this region, now in her early 80s, who'd valued my young poetry enough to secure me a book through the National Endowment for the Arts grant that funded her small press, which is now a regional powerhouse for poets and fiction writers. She's been generous to other writers at an indescribable level and had done the same for me, many years back. She showed me my value and I was astonished.

She sent me her latest volume which is a collection of heartfelt poems about her grief for her partner, whom she'd found dead of a heart attack on her neighbor's lawn when he'd gone out to chase their escaped dog. I like her poetry here and there but most of all, I genuinely love her.

I was thinking of M's loss of his wife two years ago because he's mentioned her more lately (mostly about exotic trips they took) -- and thought maybe it would be meaningful or helpful to him. I forgot that he takes everything written that comes into his hands as an opportunity to be a critic. He identifies very powerfully with that...power. So he rains contempt on anything that's not as brilliant as he is, basically. Think of your most pompous professor, brilliant with an ego the size of Moby Dick, and add steroids (she said, nastily).

Anyway, he tells me with intensity where she ranks in comparison to me three different times--the minute I answer the phone or walked into his house--despite my recoil and attempts to change the subject...it's his first and only response and, being M, he repeats and repeats and repeats his opinion...

"You're a much better poet than she is!". Okay fine, he's welcome to think that. But it's almost the only thing he has to say. And, this is hard to convey, but it's the glee with which he criticizes, his joy in labeling someone as less than elevated or stupendous or whatever he respects...there's this...nastiness in it. I really didn't like it. She is my friend and I've talked to him about her a lot, and at one point we talked about visiting her together and the idea of introducing them brought me joy, because she is so warm and generous of spirit everyone who meets her falls in love. If he didn't enjoy her work as much as mine, he could've just said something like, "Truth is, I like your poetry better and hers didn't do as much for me." I would've understood that and said once, it'd have been fine.

But as he pounded his who-WINS opinion at me, for a competition I never entered nor would, and it helped me see another layer. M is driven by insecurity, despite his ridiculous and well-earned level of success, and for him it's ALL and ALWAYS about who's good-better-best. Never just about the humanity of anyone, nor grace. It's where do they RANK in whatever hierarchy he's focusing on (whether professional or cultural or status especially), and in particular, do they (or I, in this instance) bow down to HIS assessment of their value? He can be really condescending and scathing about describing people in his professional world...particularly younger "woke" women in the department, as a matter of fact. He's dripping contempt when he describes them, mocking not just their ideas but their tones of voice, their ignorance, etc. He does the same when he mocks people with country accents, etc. I really dislike it. A lot.

Anyway, when he applied this reflex to a friend I have loved and valued for many years, and unnecessarily, it was helpful in moving my disengagement another bit.

I understand that from his lofty and probably terrified perch, he views status as everything, and probably thought he was giving me a compliment by denigrating my friend's work. One thing that is very deep for me about poetry and creative writing is that I do NOT view it as competition, and never will. To me, the impulse to write is sacred and I respect that ember in all others who have the same dream. I taught children who couldn't spell but found extraordinary metaphors in their minds. I taught undergraduates as a Teaching Fellow while earning my graduate degree, and had the same attitude toward them. "Grading" was torture for me because of the gut attachment to loving the writer more than the writing.

That's a huge difference between M and me. I'm not "better" than he is and vice versa. But his way of clawing everything into a competition, a performance, and gauging others' value by where they stand on a series of ladders: degrees, publications, plaudits, awards, prizes, wealth, social status, native intelligence, and so forth...I completely understand that this is to some degree characteristic of the academic world. It just has gone all the way to his soul, that clawing need to be the Biggest-Best-Brilliantest, all of which, even though it's true in one area, leaks into everything he sees and values.

My dad was a quiet success in his field and much respected. Yet I never once heard him tear down a colleague -- or anyone ever, in fact -- to make himself feel more important. And I realize this is sad for M, though he's happy exercising his power in the language that rewards him (he's not sad about it, he relishes his critical role).

Sigh. Poor guy. Aging and losing his relevance and power drip by drip is very hard on him. He dreads irrelevance more than death itself. Recognition and reward and applause drive him and he's earned all of it. He just can't stop.

He has another very interesting reward coming in the fall...he's been invited by the Russian government to lecture at their flagship cultural university on his historical field. It's ironic. And he's very excited about the trip. He'll soon be off to California and Costa Rica and then later, Europe and Moscow. I know he's somewhat sorry not to have a companion along, but he's going to get public praise and applause at the other end, and that's what matters most. I'm truly happy for him.

And very happy that I'm not going along. It's not fun for me any more, without the shared life dream. It's also exhausting, and until I'm sure I'm healthy, I'm not going to stress myself with all those time zones! I want my life to get smaller and simpler now, not grander. He needs that level of adrenaline and I don't.

So there's an update. It's been an interesting adventure with M, but for me, it's down to an occasional evening listening to him talk about himself, and enjoying great cooking and playing with Pooch. That's all it'll ever be, and finally, that's OK. I'll soon be returning to the oldsters dating site online and one never knows.

hugs
Hops

Twoapenny:
(((((Hops)))))))  Whilst I'm sorry things didn't work out for you, I'm also glad that your rose tinted specs have come off and you're just seeing things more clearly - and able to accept them as that.  I've not really anything useful to say as you've said it all yourself much better than I can.  I only had one thing I wanted to mention:  " I'm not "better" than he is and vice versa".  I think you are better than him and I hope you find someone better, too ;) xx

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