this episode with my grandmother has made me look at my life. my future. and the burden i may become to my husband/children.
funny how we joke about life. i'm going to do this or be this. reality is often so different.
i have no retirement money of my own. none. not one penny. my gram had enough put away that she lived on that for 6 years before this crisis. had she died at the age of any of her husbands, it would have been enough. because the women in my family are long lived, it wasn't.
my dad and i have this silly pact about living to be 120. i see now that this kind of joking is so impractical.
i also say i'm going to work till i die. but i know that the laws and mores of my own country are against me in this. they simply don't allow people to work till they die. i don't know at what age i can expect to be forced to stop working, i really don't. but i know that day will come.
between that day and the day i die i MAY (if bush doesn't tamper with the years involved and IF it doesn't fail) have some social security to live on. i believe my last statement said if i retire at the earliest age i'd get $725 and if i retire at the right age i'll get a little more, maybe $1200 a month to live on till i die.
best case scenario: i remain healthy, find a studio apartment in a rent-controlled complex and live on my own. i MIGHT make it that way.
worst case scenario...well we all know what that is.
i spoke to my husband about my concerns because i believe that if i were disabled in any major way he'd walk away from me. he assures me this isn't the case. he'd be OBLIGATED to stay with me to be able to look his sons in the eyes and to avoid being beat up by my older 4. i decided i don't much care for that term.
why am i rambling on? because i'm not sleeping well again and sometimes thinking this out aloud is cathartic.
thoughts out loud...
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