There are even more leaves on the ground today because we had heavy rain last night. As always happens, the area that I raked is completely covered in leaves again. But, they’re awfully pretty and I love sitting here in my chair watching leaves drift slowly down to the ground. So does Don.
Thank you so much for your comments yesterday. And thank you for sharing your stories. I know it isn’t easy, but it is a comfort knowing we are not alone in these experiences. Everyone’s is different, of course, but there are common threads, as well. When I write this kind of post, I am always amazed by the heartfelt responses. Those of us who grew up with alcoholism in our family, or who are dealing with it now, know how painful it is. And yes, it does leave scars.
For all those who have seen the effects of alcoholism in their families, who are suffering from the estrangement of family members, I wish you peace.
I read your comments to Don, who was deeply moved by all of them.
Thank you, my friends.
Happy Sunday.
Happy Sunday Claudia, I didn’t leave a comment yesterday but my story is so parallel to yours that it is uncanny and as I read the comments like so many others. One of the things I love about your blog. is your open and honest discussion about things that are so much a part of all our lives. It reminds us that in this crazy world, with so much decisiveness, we are very much alike and not alone. It is always amazing to me how close you can feel to someone you have never met face to face. Thanks again for all you share.
You are most welcome, Janet. Sharing it helps me as well. Reading the comments and finding that others understand is very powerful. Thank you Janet.
I just read your post of your Dad. My father was an alcoholic and I was terrified of him. Later,
he had to stop drinking and went into the Veteran’s hospital for lung cancer. It was a blessing in
disguise. I got to know my father!! I know too he loved us but his childhood and the war affected him deeply. I treasure the year I got to know him. Always left him with a love you, a kiss and I would take his hand. Those are the memories I choose to think of when I think of my
father.
Yes. Those are the memories we want to hold close, Marion. I’m so glad you had the chance to know him and love him.
I didn’t comment yesterday. I was trying to depersonalize my feelings. That is not possible.
It is a good thing this isn’t paper and that my delete button isn’t an eraser. There would be a hole in my paper. I find that even today I can’t explain my dad to you.
Too many emotions that are side by side others that I am feeling now.
One thing I can share. My dad couldn’t tell me he loved me. He would always say that he like me more than anyone he had ever known, and that he had known a lot of people.
You do not have to even attempt to explain your dad. I understand that sometimes it’s just too private.
I know of others who had parents who couldn’t say “I love you.” It always shocks me. But surely, that had to come from a lack of self-love and perhaps from their parents. If they had grown up in a house where that was expressed, it would have come easily to them. It’s just so sad. I’m sorry, Trudy xo
The photo just spells “FALL” – – I don’t have any of that where I live in SoCalif. We bring up the rear on autumn; I’ll see it more in about six weeks. It’s a lot for you to have to rake, Claudia!
I don’t rake back there, thankfully. Just in the front of the house and around the entrance to the front porch.
That’s enough!
Yeah, ’cause that’ll get to your back in a hurry (I even have trouble now with basic sweeping).
Checked ‘my tree’ (some form of maple) in town today; nope, barely starting to turn but still very green.
OMG, the beach was so gorgeous tonight around 5pm; sunny and pleasantly cool; I was again ‘restored’ (definitely my happy place, hearing that surf roll in, gulls and pelicans diving for fishies near the surface). I watched a ‘traveler’ in a small mini van, just a guy (mature guy) and his dog; I figured he had a bed roll behind the seats and the whole back end of the van otherwise was for storage/coolers/water. The van was neat-appearing; he had it ‘together’; seemed quite organized. We’d first spotted him walking the dog (good size, approx 80-100 lb doggie). First thing he did was give the dog water after the walk, let him rest in the comfort of the van interior, then fixed his own dinner and something for the dog; fed the dog first (my kind of guy; he was SO GOOD to this calm, contented dog!). Wasn’t there for the night; just gonna enjoy the sunset methinks; good stopover of a few hours for wherever he was next bound. The guy seemed so relaxed, like he’d had this lifestyle for maybe quite a while.
Prompted a discussion between my husband and I as to the freedom of such a life. My husband said, “I’d do it in a heartbeat, right now.” First time I’ve EVER heard him say something like that. I said, “What if we could do it for a couple of years, like soon; forget the house and all these ‘improvements’ for the time being? I could work it out with my doctors, get checkups along the way, maybe prescription drugs by mail; it would just take planning.” He said, “Uh, Vicki, wake up. We’d have to SELL the house to buy a rig (no mini van!)…those vehicles are EXPENSIVE…and we could never live like that; I don’t have, but YOU have too much STUFF for RV living! It’s like trying to live on a boat.” (Offsite storage anyone?!)
Regardless, imagination going wild, the wheels are now turning in my head tonight; enjoying staying with the pipe dream. The what ifs. Okay, so you sell the house and are wanderers for a couple of years. What if, along the way in the travel, you found your ‘my heart’ forever-place to live? There’s always another apartment or mobile home or duplex if not another diminutive house in a more property-friendly U.S. state than Calif. Oh, the possibilities!!! I’d love to take the ferry to Victoria and spend a month on Vancouver Island to start…
We went through the same thing a year or so ago – this was when we thought Margaritaville would run for at least a year and we’d have enough money to do it – we were going to buy a trailer, maybe a vintage airstream or something smaller, and travel around the country. But we can’t afford to do that and pay our mortgage. And we sure as heck don’t want to give up this house. So, there you go…
But I completely understand that desire that you’re feeling.
This is too far back in the comments; I was just scrolling, seeing if I missed anything. I have some days where I’m not on the computer.
So interesting, your reply. I don’t recall you ever speaking on the blog about traveling with a trailer but, after all, you do need to keep some personal plans to yourself. But, gosh, what is it with a lot of us; this yearning and impatience for wanderlust? Maybe so much of the world yet to see and running out of time to do it? Seekers of fun! But, yes, reality bites; you have to be in the right circumstances to do that kind of travel and it seems you two and certainly moi and my husband just aren’t. I remember when ‘way younger that I thought it would be such a kick to travel along with a truck driver for part of a year; see America from the interstate, miles of highway. (Better scenery on a train, though!)
Yes again, it would be quite foolhardy right now for us to give up our home. (The ‘if onlys’; if we were only younger!) I have a friend whose parents did it, long time ago, like in the early 1970s; sold the house and bought a ‘5th-wheel’ trailer and a heavyduty pickup truck. They later lived in the trailer full-time in a permanent, parked destination (after all the time on the road). They’d quit working, closed up their home-based business, retired early at age 50 (!!) and threw caution to the wind. The wife was always glad they did it, as the husband died at around age 60.
They weren’t people of any kind of great wealth. The husband’s modest pension was finite with his death (they hadn’t read the fine lines), they’d been self-employed, their funds were fairly depleted from all the travel and her Social Security/his was paltry (I don’t know all the details, but it left the wife pretty-much penniless at a still-young age and, clearly, neither was yet on Medicare and his hospital bills must have been tremendous [lingering illness; critical diagnosis], although they must have had some sort of medical insurance). So, she ultimately had to move in with my friend (her daughter) and that went on for 25 years; the trailer was falling apart by then anyway (lots of road miles on it; I don’t think they’re probably constructed to last forever!).
Anyway, in my case (and yours), we don’t have adult children as any kind of safety net such as my friend’s mom did, so our choices have to be very careful.
I’ve always found it ironic that people should travel and do adventuresome things when young (and full of vigor) yet that’s also likely when they have no money to do it (and are also tied down by jobs, school loans, etc.). You get older, maybe retired, but you’re less inclined to do risky things (you might bungee jump or zipline or hang glide at age 25 but it seems dangerous at age 65!); you normally have more money that you did when you were, say, in your 20s, but often you’ve slowed down, get more tired and maybe have even developed some health issues or some other kind of limitation. Dad finally got to the Statue of Liberty, but he couldn’t climb those stairs in his 60s like he might have when he was 30.
(So that’s when I look at these young celebs in the news with all their millions…ah, to be young, healthy AND rich! Hopefully they know how lucky they are…)
My big fear is that we’ll end up penniless in our old age.
Ah, well.
Yeah, I’ve always had this nightmare that I’m gonna end up a bag lady. No joke. And that was before I knew of a woman who became one. She’d had no family; her husband died. They’d run into hard times; sold the house, bought a used motorhome to live in, age 60-ish. Over time, and she was alone now, the motorhome died; she eventually wound up on the street. True story although I’m sure there must have been more to the story, like why not a women’s shelter and someone/social worker(?) to guide her toward other senior resources? I did meet her. Grandmotherly-type with white hair worn in a chignon. She’d been in rehab for severe clinical depression. Appeared to be a lovely, gentle, kind woman who didn’t deserve what had happened to her.
I’ve reinvented myself more than a few times, but I was younger, able-bodied, could work, get a job for pay, find another apartment, and land on my feet again. But that was another time; another era.
You know, Claudia, with you and me, if we can just make that house payment each month, that’s a sigh of relief. After that, I feel like my husband and I can figure the rest out. Now that I’ve become more accustomed to when the fixed-income hits like Social Security (which time of the month, and have then readjusted when I pay for stuff), I immediately pay the mortgage and a few other essentials, then deal with what remains. Sometimes we’ve stayed out of the grocery store that week (and more), eaten from the pantry shelves at home. Parked the car; delayed errands; conserve fuel.
But that’s a big fear for me, to get behind in the mortgage payments. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be my age and not have to make one each month. I guess it would be the same with rent, though. I always pay the City bill right away, too, because they’ll cut off your water in a nano-second if you even get behind one month in payments.
My husband tells me that I have to stop measuring our situation to that of someone else’s. After all, it’s a sin to covet, right? My dad was always grateful for what he had. And Mother would speak of how there’ll always be people greater or lesser than oneself, in terms of worldly goods or station in life or whatever.
But there’s a house on my street here in SoCalif (over 60 years old and nothing special about it; these homes are a conventional old ’50s tract with ticky-tack houses all in a row, like Levittown) which just sold for $490,000 on Wednesday and, 8 years ago when my mom reverse-mortgaged this one, we could barely get $200,000 for it. So, this house a few doors down which just sold quickly for that high amount (home values here, in my part of SoCalif, have crazy-escalated; the just-sold home is in about the same condition as mine/fixer-upper; and I happen to know that the home is full-equity for the heirs; the owner never borrowed against it) will mean well over $150,000 in the pocket of each of the three adult-child descendants who are my age. And it’s not that I’m not happy for them to get this money, right when they-themselves are retiring, or sad that they lost their mom last year (she’d had Alzheimer’s for nearly a decade, so it’s been a rocky road for all concerned), but the green-eyed monster DOES raise its head, when I think of what it would mean if all of a sudden my husband and I got handed a big wad of money like that at this age, in the fixed-income years, and considering that we don’t have any kind of big portfolio with large savings and investments.
Just can’t imagine the relief of having that kind of cushion (for, like, when you need to replace a car, put on a new roof like we need to be doing right now, pay for an unexpected medical expense, etc.). But indeed the thinking of it is pointless and just makes me feel bad.
I don’t even know that many people, yet I know quite a few (no exaggeration) who are enjoying the handed-down wealth of their conservative and now-departed Greatest Generation parents. (These newly-wealthy ‘kids’ are doing a lot of globetrotting, so I definitely salivate when hearing about their multiple trips to Europe[!!]; one just bought a second home/vacay home at a lake, too [and another flew from L.A. to NYC just to see a play and eat dinner at a swanky place; sheesh]!) I’d read years ago that a considerable number of boomers would be the recipients of inheritances (just didn’t include me, boo-hoo; but a pity party and envy [negative!] does no good and I’ll hang onto my husband’s words that we’ll be safe [positive!]).
I do have a childhood friend whose husband lost his bank job in The Recession and never really got a decent job again, so she’s still working at age 66 and can’t retire for (her words) awhile yet (they also lost their home during that bad time and are renting) but even she is getting a share of rental income from the deceased parents’ home that she and her two siblings still own and which they will sell soon so that they’ll have their own retirement nest eggs. This causes her a lot less worry, and she’s also very strong in her religious faith.
I just found out that my long-ago, ex-boyfriend (we came very close to marrying back in the day), who I occasionally still run into (very awkward) is a bigger property mogul than I thought. He’s retired now, lives very comfortably in a beautiful-vintage 4000 sqft house on an acre here in ‘my’ town, actually owns six houses in his upscale neighborhood plus other ones in a nearby town. I have to hand it to him; he’s a self-made man, although he did get a big boost at the beginning when he was in college and his grandmother left him her house. But he sure made that money work for him.
It is what it is for me and my husband. Circumstance and choices brought us to this point. Can’t look back, only forward. Trust in the journey. In many ways, we did the best we could. And we’re so lucky to have each other most of all. If we can eat, have a roof over our head and protect our health, we’ve got more than so many other people. I really want that to be my mantra: Be Thankful. It’s something I have to keep revisiting. This is a good time of the year to be reminded of it, as we approach the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
You and Don, my husband and I? We’ll be okay, Claudia!
(Talking this out a bit/lot too much, from a week ago. Thanks for listening. Onto a new week! Just wanted to say [in a thousand words too many] that I identify with quite a few things you and Don contend with and you’ve got my support and best wishes for slogging thru the more-troubling times! It helps me when you’ve shared your life there in NY, and to know that there are other senior-aged couples like me and my husband who are going thru a lot of the same very-real issues [and not going on some new exotic vacation every other month as carefree retirees although I guess more power to them as, were I them, I’d probably be doing the same thing!].)
My parents left me money but it was a very modest sum. Four kids, middle class income. But they were able to save in a way we haven’t been able to – bought their house at a young age, paid it off, then channeled the money from the sale of it into a new home, etc. Bless them. And my Dad had a good pension.
It is what it is and we just have to do our best to handle it gracefully. xo
Our leaves are falling but there is no color. We have not had any rain in a week or two. The grass is turning brown in most of the neighborhood.
Marilyn
There are so many leaves on the ground, Marilyn! Seems early to me.
What a lovely Sunday post. I’d love to be enjoying your garden on a gorgeous day.
Thank you, Jeanie!