The Visitor...

I live in a small boring southeastern town. I moved here because it is affordable, safe, and quiet. If I want excitement, I visit an exciting place or places. I have lived in many large and exciting cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, Austin, St. Louis, etc. So EXCITING has become rather boring for me. Like Nilsson’s pointless forest in “The Point”, too many points makes it “pointless”. And too much excitement can make everything else boring. The people here are all pretty much the same and that means stability…and a type of exquisite boredom. We have a 15 year old relative staying with us from a much bigger and more exciting city. She is bored stiff!!! We are trying to make her stay with us more exciting but it is almost impossible. And at age 15, she does not have the maturity to be creative or to even be nice about being bored. I used to live on a farm with my grandparents way out in the country, before cell phones, before iPods, before FM radio, before cable TV. Can you imagine just how bored she would have been then? I admit, I’m not used to being around teenagers. There seem to be so many more things (physically and mentally) going on with teens now that I am at a loss to fully understand. Without mechanical entertainment, I had to make my own entertainment out of whatever was handy. I read a lot. I planned what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was depressed at times and when I was in college, I was depressed for a really long time. There was no psychologist to turn to then. (I'm glad the resources are available now because I sure could have used some help back then.) I am also taking into account that my guest comes from a very dysfunctional background. I know, I know…every family unit is dysfunctional in some way, but her family situation is really different. Understanding and sympathy is all I can offer. I cannot change it for her. She will have to develop her own coping skills like I did in my dysfunctional family unit when I was her age. She is counting the days until she goes back home. So am I.

The BIG C...

So… I try not to talk too much about my breast cancer and losing a body part to an insidious disease that could have killed me. I was very lucky that it was caught before it spread, and that I did NOT have to go through hair destroying, puke your guts out, chemo. So far, the worst thing about this is not being able to wear clothes that are meant to show cleavage. Now I have only one cleave. It doesn’t make me list to one side, but the fake boob I have to wear is heavy and has to be adjusted occasionally so I don’t look lopsided. (I don’t wear it too often ‘cause it’s really hot and uncomfortable.) Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, I was thinking about what I might have missed if I had died from this. (BTW - I don’t mind dying, but I do mind “dying badly”. All that drama! Yuck!) I also didn’t care to have one of those Eureka or A’HA moments. You know, the instant you realize the trajectory of your life has been interrupted in a huge way by something you cannot control. I wanted to continue with the plan my husband and I formulated several years ago. The plan was this: I would work till I was old enough to retire and my husband and I could then move to Central America or some other exotic destination where we would enjoy doing something other than shop and drink and eat. We both love El Salvador, its people, the scenery, climate, etc. This nasty little medical interruption would just have to be figured in to our plan. It would need to be altered by an additional five years. That’s the amount of time my doctors say I need to be free of the nasty little buggers before I could be declared cancer free! Anyway, I was sitting alone one evening after my first A’HA moment, having my private little pity party (which I hate but it gives me a format in which I can explore my true emotional state). I wondered, why am I thinking about this crazy stuff? What about the plans I so carefully crafted for my future, my retirement? I realized my timetable now was beginning to feel like a benign trap. “What ifs” began creeping in. What if it (my cancer) comes back, what if I get hit by a bus, what if I win a million dollars, what if nothing good or bad happens at all? I remembered a poem by Richard Lovelace called To Althea from Prison. A famous line near the end goes, “Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage;…” He was talking about love. But I always take things out of context to suit my mood. So now the poem could also illustrate the cage my thoughts were creating for me. Stone and iron thoughts, keeping me stuck in an extended plan. What to do??? Soon I got it!!! Another Eureka! If I had never had to deal with any of this, I would have gone on with my life and my plan. So the only thing that has changed (for now) is the 5 years added onto the plan. I could get hit by a bus, or not. Until I know for sure that my days are numbered (and possibly how many days I have left), why should I give up on my plan? I once heard this pearl… “If you know your future, you don’t have one.” I really don’t know what will happen, I can only stress and worry about the unknown. What a waste of time! Now, I am reasonably sure I can look forward to my retirement in another 3 years. That gives me 3 years to research our relocation to Central America or someplace else we might like better. I have 3 years to save more money and get rid of the junk I don’t need. What a relief. I’ll still have those days when my brain will do that little dance, and my heart will leap out of my chest when I think about my future. Bringing my brain and my heart back into rhythm so I can move forward shouldn’t take too long if I remember that life is a crapshoot and I’m a moving target.

Health care reform is scary if they get it wrong...

McCain wanted to tax health care benefits. That's insane, McCain. One of the myriad reasons (other than Sara Palin's being a heartbeat away from the presidency) that I did not vote for the Republican ticket. Now that scenario is back on the table. We need to make it MORE affordable, not LESS affordable. If I am taxed on my health care benefits at the absurd cost they have risen to today, I will take home a lot less than I have been living on. That kind of reform is not reform. What else do I cut out of my existence? I need to pay less than the almost $6,000 per year in medical premiums and other medical costs that I pay now. The powers that be ARE NOT LISTENING to the Nurses Union, doctors, and others who advocate a single-payer system. And there are those who are trying to scare the bejesus out of us again about how health care as we know it now will cease to exist. I certainly hope it ceases to exist in it's present expensive, elitist state. Health care now is outrageously expensive, inadequate for the uninsured, a drain on our small businesses, and unfair when insurance companies decide whether they want to pay, or not, for life and death procedures. Of course, the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and anyone else at the table who is against logical, reasonable, sane reform, will definitely lobby the congress and if we are lucky nothing will change for the worse and real reform will just be deferred for another 30 years. If we are unlucky, the changes will be good for the medical community and MORE expensive for us. If you are young, you might think you don't really want to get involved in this discussion. If you have children you are probably mildly interested in listening to the debate. If you are close to retirement, you will soon be on Medicare and these points, you think, will be moot for you. But if you are looking at another ten years before you can retire, this may be really important. In ten years you could be working for another GM or AIG or some company that downsizes your job. The first to go are usually the older employees. After you have used up all your savings putting your children through college, and your 401K is just a piece of paper, you have been laid-off and used up all your severance pay, the spectre of having a catastrophic illness without having insurance may keep you awake at night. If your children think they are out of this loop, think again. Who is going to take care of Mom and Dad when they are sick and have no money? And remember, if it can happen to Mom and Dad today, it could happen to your children in about 20 years when they are looking toward their retirement. History has a way of repeating itself because we weren't listening the first time. Real, meaningful reform with an eye to the future seems to take a backseat when health care is treated only as a business. Care is part of health care. There are smaller, poorer countries on this planet that provide basic health care for their citizens. If we can keep sending rockets and rovers to Mars, we can provide basic health care for our people. As Yoda said, "Do or do not, there is no try." It's that simple.

Everybody is doing it, doing it...

Ok, so everybody I know is blogging. I respond to their blogs. I guess it's my turn to start a dialogue. Maybe I'll meet some new friends with new ideas. Or maybe I'll get some feedback on my ideas. Anyway, if you have any information on living in Central America as an American ExPat, I'd love to hear from you and what your experiences have been, both positive and negative. I know lots of people who are moving to Belize, El Salvador, Pamana, Costa Rica, etc. Well, that's it for this posting.