WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
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The Simple Life
You're making lists today of all the things you haven't done yet
You're driving everyone crazy, are you having any fun yet
Mother says you oughta get married
Shrink says here's a little blue pill
Too young for your mid-life crisis
Mirror says you're over the hill
{snip}
There's nothing wrong with you
The simple life gets complicated
There's nothing you can do, just enjoy the view be glad you made it
Cuz things could be better, cuz things could be worse
Cuz life can be charmed and cursed
There's fast, slow and stall, no reverse
.
Mary Chapin Carpenter
Yesterday was my birthday. I was born three years + approximately two weeks before President Obama, and a few weeks before pop singer Madonna. You'll have to do the math, but that age technically puts me in the much maligned (around DK) Baby Boomer generation. A group I belonged to in college is having a 30 year reunion in a few months. And a few weeks ago I received a notice about my high school class's 35th reunion next year. (I haven't been to a class reunion since the ten year one.)
It's at such markers that one tends to review their life. I'm old enough to have been shoved out of the work force in the field in which I have experience, yet too young to qualify for Social Security or a job as a greater at WalMart. What's a person who's fallen through those cracks to do?
The many things I once thought I would have accomplished by now - fulfilling career, marriage, kids, house with the picket fence, travel to exotic places (besides Hawaii.) Those were a big fail. Flunked the Darwin test for attracting a mate. That then put a damper on the idea of kids. I suppose I could have adopted or gone the sperm bank route, but didn't believe that was a good option for me. Got kicked out of the profession I'd many years training so hard to be good at. I apparently got too good at it and unwittingly made other people feel so bad about themselves that they had to take me down any way they could (which meant lying to and about me.)
Even the not-for-profit groups I tried to get involved with marginalized me. Heaven forbid someone, particularly a loser like myself, suggest even small ways they could improve their activities. No, that just makes others look bad. Seems like people who can't fulfill their needs for power in the work sector go to not-for-profits to satisfy their egos.
And I come to find out on DK that the good I thought I was doing for less fortunate people, either directly or through charitable groups, is not appreciated by them. Those getting food from food banks don't like items I donated. (Sorry, my Depression-era mother, who wouldn't throw out food until it was past rotten, set my standards lower than people raised in current times. I keep forgetting that what I consider as edible isn't acceptable to other people.) The times I donated business clothes to shelters for abused women, such as when S.F. Kossacks collected them for Pretty Bird Woman House, believing I was helping women with a step toward independence, I just learned I was being less than altruistic. Nope, it was really my selfish desire to feel superior and buy new clothes. Who knew?
I am persona non grata no matter what I do. Why bother to get actively engaged in life if people are just going to smack you down regardless? I suppose I could do the earth a favor by just offing myself now to stop wasting resources others want. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me waking up day after day is the desire to be a thorn in the side of bullies, especially Republicans. Not that I'm succeeding.
Rather than be active carpe diem style, I waste away my days in a general malaise; reading on teh tubes, watching news and other TV, doing piddly errands in twice the time they should take. I have a long "to do" list of personal chores, and piles of books to read, which I can't seem to get motivated to do despite all my free time.
Add to the above that the warranty on my body has expired. I'm experiencing all manner of odd ailments (menopause is teh suck), which is compounded by not having health insurance to seek out as much preventative care.
Those are some of my FPs. How about yours?