Mother’s good friend, Marge, made a big decision. She decided to sell her house here and move to a nice retirement village in Arizona to be near her daughter. So she’s been gone about a month. Marge worked for Walgreens for 30 years so she’s not nearly rich. Can’t be.
Mother talked to Marge today. These days, Marge is out swimming every day and has found a group of people to play cards with. So she’s having the time of her life. After she worked for Walgreens, God knows she deserves it. Bless her. I like Marge a lot. She’s brutal. She’ll look you right in the face and tell you the honest truth. I like people like that because I know I can trust them. I will miss Marge. She’s awesome.
If Mother would go to a retirement home, I would be over the moon. I would run naked into the street and dance around. Jesus it would solve so many problems for me. If Mother wanted to move to freakin’ Arizona to be with Marge, I would be over the moon! I’d be free. She’d be taken care of. God, wouldn’t that be a dream!
I can’t sit around until retirement time and do nothing. I’m sure there are people who would gladly trade places with me. They could play video games or drive around or whatever. Have a roof over their heads, food to eat, lots of leisure time. But I’m miserable.
I could be and should be working to pad out my meager retirement. I stayed home for 15 years to raise a daughter before my husband found someone he like better and divorced me. I don’t have a good work history. Most of my married life I didn’t have to work so I didn’t. I spent my time homemaking and raising a daughter: cooking, decorating, crafting, even cleaning. I love it all.
There are jobs going unfilled because there are so many people on unemployment from Covid and unemployment actually covers realistic living expenses these days. Whereas, anything close to minimum wage does not. It’s not even a reasonable decision for people on unemployment to make. I wouldn’t go to work for less. That would be stupid. And, no, I’m not a millennial. Not even close. Jeez.
No, I wouldn’t be working because of some misguided “work ethic” that people who make over $100,000 a year have. I would be working to try to add some small portion to my retirement at 68 or 69 or never.
But, no. Mother would rather sit in her chair in her living room and be miserable. It’s her perpetual hobby. The fact that she is dragging me down to hell with her doesn’t bother her at all. It doesn’t even give her pause. She believes that she is my legal responsibility and that she doesn’t have to make any decisions (even to have her hair cut) and that she should, by all rights, be completely taken care of. By me.
She treated her Mother, my grandmother, that way. So she could complain about how hard her life was. And Grandmother was an outright terrorist. The entire world owed her something because her son had drowned when he was sixteen. And she became the responsibility of her children. A true demon from hell.
Of course, Grandma didn’t have a pot to piss in. She had nothing. But that was her decision. Just as mother’s decision to sit and be miserable is her decision.
Mother is perfectly capable of making decisions in her own best interest about her care.
I had a talk with mother recently when she was reminding me that “most daughters take care of their mothers”. I said, “OK, I have a daughter. She will ALWAYS be my daughter. That will never change. Even when I’m your age she will still be my daughter. I will be responsible for her until I die. That will never change”.
Fortunately, I’m happy to be partly responsible for my precious daughter. Yes, she’s grown, married, and raising a step-son, working full time, and completing graduate school (and doing a damn fine job of it, also). But to think that she would ever be responsible for my living conditions and decisions? I’d willingly die before I put that responsibility on her. For God’s sake.
What the hell exactly is the problem with this older generation, anyway? OK. I’m starting to get pissed off again. Big time. Because they worked a third of their lives, what exactly do we own them? And why? Someone explain this to me. Tom Brokaw in his book called them “The Greatest Generation”. I call them “The Entitlement Generation”. When I start telling about my experiences working as a pharmacy tech at Walgreens, you’ll get a taste of why I loathe and despise the anarchists of this Entitlement Generation.
So everyday, I’m realizing more and more that I need to make a decision and get myself out of this. I can’t stay here. The world may be on a fatal trajectory. All corporations may be on a suicidal slide. But I still need to do what’s best for me. That’s get the hell out of here. And I have absolutely no one to help me. And I’m scared.
Tears and Catharsis 