We are just about seven months into my new lifestyle. I am chronically tired, because now, for the first time since MS entered my consciousness, I cannot rest at midday.
My car went the way of my naps, and I now own a Malibu. Definitely not the end of the world, but not my style. Between the car payments and the huge gasoline consumption, we have no cash for anything, and no longer pay down our debts incurred from raising teenagers. The banks raised the apr's on anything and everything they could. We barely make minimums, and we buy only food.
We are now unable to maintain our home as we should. The paint never went on the outside, and the roof will not see new shingles anytime in the foreseeable future, whether I do the work myself or not. Our walkways are literally crumbling into rubble.
Yes, I looked into early retirement, but the 401K was ravaged by the crash on Wall Street, and is only now beginning to make its excruciatingly slow recovery. And of course, there is the debt. I had figured two to three years to clean it up. Now it is anybody's guess. Certainly not two to three years.
In eighteen months my job will have flown to Michigan. Is it Michigan? I don't remember, and it is irrelevant. Too far to commute from Upstate New York.
I had planned to write my books and my blogs when I retired from the paper. Now retirement from the paper will be a ticket to a parttime job somewhere closer to home. If work is actually available, then even that will be a blessing. Right now, there is no work, no advertisements, nothing but a very slow increase in the highly specialized jobs that disappeared in the crash.
Yes, I am lucky to have a job. I reach into the attic for old clothes to alter when anything I wear is totally worn out or just ruined. The laugh's on me. I was skinnier in the waist until I turned fifty. Now middle-aged spread makes most old clothes unsuitable for me. Ironically, my hips are thinner than before, so everything fits everywhere except at the waistline.
No time to walk the river on weekdays; I spend at least eleven hours of every work day in Binghamton or on the road commuting. This too, will increase; our offices will move just before Thanksgiving, and will add 15-20 minutes onto my commute. If I hear one more person tell me that "that's not bad, just a few minutes more," I will slap whomever it is. One minute more than my hour and a half commute is just too much to contemplate.
I've already had an exacerbation. Very short, just a day or so, but terrifying. My sight went completely out of whack, enough so that I wondered if I were having a mini-stroke, like my Dad had a few years back. Just once, thank the powers that govern the universe. Again, one too many.
I want to blog, I want to write, and I want to walk the river. But after each work day, I am too tired, and the weekends are only two days.
