Used tissue

I suppose this is the natural response, but I feel crumpled like used tissue. I have looked into what might be available and find not much. This week, I have devoted my time to getting organized, dealing with insurance and financial issues and exploring. Next week, I begin my job search in earnest. Other people manage to find rewarding careers after their shelf life expires. I am not one of them. Apparently, I lack imagination because all I seem before me are the terrors of looking into temporary work and I was never a good "new kid on the block." This is a learning experience, that is my mantra. I cannot curl up and die, well, I could, but I won't. I don't know which way to turn and there is no one who cares enough to listen, and I cannot keep repeating myself. Had I been a better person. this would not have happened. That's in the past. It's gone. It cannot be relived. Whatever happens, I will die alone, unwanted and unmourned--my worst fears realized. The good news is, I'll be dead, so I won't know.

On the upside, I do 15 minutes on the exercise bike, so when I die, I will have one really good knee.

What doesn't kill you will leave you writhing in pain

Yesterday's to-do list went quite well, other than the frustrating conversation about my 401/Pension Fund account. But eventually even that will work out. I filed for unemployment benefits online, and according to them I have 45 skills. An automatic message suggested I look into adding to my skills to make me more marketable. It didn't say more marketable as what. And five, count 'em five boxes of personal belongings arrived. Now, I know of two, and I know I took what I wanted with me, so those five boxes should be interesting. On today's list: me and the trash barrel going through those five boxes. Or maybe I should just dump them unopened.

It occurs to me that I worked in the same place for 17 years and three months and came away without one friend. Not one. I think that says a lot about me--a lot I'd rather not explore at the moment. Yesterday, someone I knew suggested I take in a room mate post haste. She wouldn't want a room mate, but she suggested I get one. Can you imagine anyone who would want to share anything with me? Neither can I. The hospital bill came, so this will not be a day without spending money.

Yesterday's conversation about my pension fund was frustrating. I wanted to get everything done before the blackout, which I was told was on the 30th--but they moved it up to yesterday. Convenient, don't you think? But the guy in charge told me to call this administrator and that administrator and they told me to call him. Then I get a snotty note about how I can't do anything until Nov. 11, which he did say, right before he told me to call someone else. I end up feeling jacked around and they end up feeling I am a pain and all of it means I cannot roll that money over until November. Somehow, I think this does not bode well for me.

I've explored the employment opportunities available to me and think maybe the Eskimos have it right when they put the elderly on ice floes. Something will come up, I will survive, and everything happens for a reason. At least I did not wake up with a panic attack. I count that as a minor victory.

17 years working in one place and all I have to show for it are five boxes of crap and a sense of foreboding. I suppose it could be worse.

Without a schedule

During recovery from knee surgery, I kept a schedule. I wanted to maintain my usual sleep patterns. I wanted to be well enough to return to work without any problems. And yesterday, as I went through my rehab routine, I couldn't help thinking how useless it all was.

I awoke today paralyzed with fear. It all comes down to money, of course. A friend said that she thought if I could make it through the next 18 months, I'd be fine, Maybe she's right. My schedule for today, is to sign the separation agreement and get what money they are willing to give, go to the library and sign up for unemployment insurance, look through the want ads. But what do I want?

I dreamed last night that it was today and I have one last thing to finish up for work even though I no longer worked there. I did the job but when I left, I became lost. I could not find my way home. I wandered around in a world of people who were busy with their lives and who would not help. I found myself in a courtyard filled with student actors--young, fresh, and with their lives ahead of them and filled with promise. And I remembered when I was one of them and part of something. But mostly, I was lost with no way home.

My career as a writer/editor is over. No one will hire me because of my age. OK, that door is closed. Customer service jobs, the usual fall back for those of us with limited skills, have dried up and gone to India.

Why do people stay in uncomfortable situations, whether it's a bad marriage or a bad job? Because it's comfortable and safe. Because the unknown is so terrifying. I did this to myself and I have no one to blame but myself. I have to put one foot in front of the other and walk. At least I have one good knee on which to make the journey. But I am alone in this, as I am in everything else.

Meanwhile
I am trying to make it through the day without spending money. I am not succeeding.

Gas: 18.55 ($2.99 a gallon)
Cigarettes: $34 (a carton and the kid behind the counter CARDED ME. I haven't been carded in 40 years)
Cost to print something out at the Library: 60 cents but I had to put $1 on the no refund account

I need trash bags.

Tomorrow, when my head clears, we will discuss how difficult it is to roll over my money from their 401/Pension into a personal IRA. The horror, oh the horror!

Keeping busy

I spent the better part of Saturday assembling the exercise bike I ordered when I was employed and could afford such things. Pleased to report that I only sustained one nasty cut, and that from a scissors while opening the box. OK, so I did realized a little late in the game that the enclosed "spanner" had uses. Although initially stumped by the missing bolts to affix the seat, I did eventually find them, on the bottom of the seat. I did not, as it happens, figure out about the computer, which still remains in the box, nor was I successful with that final seat bolt, but it works and I am now in danger of becoming a physically sit senior citizen. I did my 15 minutes, yesterday AND today, but on the lowest setting (without the computer attached apparently I cannot change settings--another good reason for it to remain in the box).

I had a knee replaced in July. Returned after 10 weeks, and was fired. I don't think the two events are related, but who knows. It is still something of a shock that I cannot easily begin riding (even on the lowest setting), but eventually the new knee does what it's suppose to. I have the rest of the knee rehab ahead of me, but I have yards of time and nothing to do.

I assume that other people in this circumstance somehow retire. I don't know how they do that, so I am really concerned. Oh, hell, I had a full blown panic attack this morning--and it's only 9:50 a.m. A number of people, younger and with more energy, believe I should build a freelance business, as if I have the energy to start from scratch what I should have been doing from the beginning. Someone suggested I write a book, but I can think of no subject that might interest anyone.

None of this would have happened had I not been me, had I been another, better person. But it did happen and there is nothing for it but to move along, nothing more to see here. I'm not even angry, just scared.