|
2001-10-30 / 4:02 p.m. ~The Luxury of Not Working~ At the risk of sounding like a true sloth, or merely a very lazy person, I must admit that not working is my chosen lifestyle. When I was in my twenties I inherited some money, no tremendous fortune, but if I had left it invested and worked for a living instead of living off it for four years I would no doubt be a millionaire today. I cannot go back in time and change my life, I would change everything that's occurred since, and that would not necessarily be good, but if I had been wiser things would be set for me now. I dropped out of college, I ended up with my own place, my own apartment, away from my boyfriend at the time, I felt so free, and I did not work. I luxuriated in not working, my life was whatever I wanted it to be. I did it again, years later, after I quit the bookstore job. Four years at that place, it had become my life, the people there my family, my wonderful transient family, the friendships formed, broken, the lovers coming and going from my life, but I quit on principle, I quit and I dropped out of something again, I lived off a second inheritance. Oh, I had a financial advisor, and he advised me right into a useless IRA, one I would be penalized for dissolving when I truly needed it. Huge mistake. He didn't understand me, and that is vital when working with someone else's money. Nevertheless....I'll never regret taking another two years away from the working world. It was bliss. Yesterday and today remind me of those times, what my life used to be, the people who came in and out of it were of my choosing, everything was my choosing, and now so much seems forced upon me, all for money. All for basic needs, to provide for myself. Money is so necessary, and the means of acquiring it for those basic needs can sometimes not be of our ultimate choosing, perhaps only of what we feel we can do at the time, what we feel forced into. I'm not alone in this. My own father worked a job he almost hated, his whole adult life, to "provide" for his family. I'll never forget him telling me, upon his retirement, that it was never what he wanted to do, he had his degree in History after all, he was a Renaissance man, highly intelligent, and his mind was wasted in the insurance business. But he was successful, he was a Vice President, a high ranking executive, he saved money, had assets when he died. Dying with the most toys means nothing. It wouldn't prevent him from smoking his health into cancer, from suffering through removal of a kidney, then a piece of his brain, from dying in a Catholic home for terminally ill cancer patients, from being baptised Catholic on his deathbed, him, a lapsed Jew. And all that money, all that success, paid for the exorbitant doctor bills, the neurosurgeon, the anesthesiologist, the hospital costs, the huge inheritance he meant to leave my brother and I was spent on those bills. We sold the house, the one that haunts me in my sleep, and split the revenue. Another inheritance I spent, and I don't regret it, no, Pop, I'll not regret that I don't live my life to please you nor anyone else, and I think that you would not be proud of me, and that's fine, for I am not proud of how you lived your life and died. You should've been a man of conviction, you should not have let a woman tell you what career to have, you should have taught History if it pleased you....not gotten drunk with the boys in the bars during long business lunches. I've never wanted to work. I was not like my sister dying to work in the corner diner at the age of 16, I never wanted to have a paycheck, I never wanted to slave for someone else, I never wanted an enterprise, I never wanted to go to an office five days a week, or sell things to put money in someone else's pocket. Retail did come naturally to me however, especially when the product was one I could endorse, such as books, or gourmet foods. I loved my books when I was a Section Manager, I loved my sections, the non fiction, the Cooking, Gardening, Nature, Home, Crafts....even later the Large Print, the Gift books, the Sale books, even the Facts and Trivia, the Christmas displays, all of it. I hated when people spilled coffee on them, or dumped ashtrays from the cafe upstairs. That job was my passion, my life. Nothing since has compared, and what I do now is for money. I am good at what I do, I am competent, and I have fallen into a state of agonized complacency there. I hate it, I do it, I accept it, I want change, but I am afraid of failing, afraid of being without a means to pay my expenses. I want comfort, I want someone to care for me, and as independent as I am, I sometimes just want someone else to step in and take over. Today, yesterday, reminds me of what my life has been, what it could be, the joy, the luxury of not having to do what someone else wants, but what I want instead. And I'll go back tomorrow and all will return to "normal", the same issues, the same problems, the same desire for more. But now, now is sleeping late, 'til 1:30 in the afternoon, Gladys curled against me under the covers, one side then the other, all night, all morning, all afternoon, clean sheets, extra blanket, me in pajamas underneath and still cold. Yet cozy. Me, watching "Guiding Light" live, though I've not watched the 4 episodes on tape from last week, knowing I'll catch up later....watching Dr. Rick Bauer and young Dr. Mel have their first kiss, getting lost remembering how good that can be, wanting my own first kiss again......and Harley being pursued by the handsome Gus Iturro, and how he wants her and she him, but she is afraid of that wanting. And it's just a soap opera, but it makes me feel, it reminds me of things I miss, courting, longing, mutual expressions of desire. And I pause here for a long sigh...... It's just two days off, and I've ignored most everything on my list of things to do. I don't want to deal with my car. I'm afraid I may need a new radiator, and that's in addition to the need for a new carburetor and fuel pump, maybe a whole new exhaust system. I can't deal with it, don't even know how. And I don't know how to buy a new car. That car was bought with a check, from my inheritance, back when I was 24 years old. I don't know how to be a grown up, I don't know how to manage a car payment on my salary. I didn't go to the bank to open a savings account, and I can't afford it now anyway, and I didn't go move my safe deposit box or visit my storage locker, weekday things I wanted to do on these two days. But know what? Most of me doesn't even care. This is down time, this is time I need to sit and watch "Guiding Light" with Gladys on my outstretched legs, my arm between her legs, patting her soft belly, rubbing her chin as her eyes close in pleasure. This is my time to do nothing, to sit all day in Tigger pajama bottoms and a tshirt, to watch TV, or read diaries on the internet, to write in my own. I did do laundry, three loads over the past three days, I did clear off the vintage dining table in my dining room, enough for Anna to remark when she picked me up yesterday (so I didn't have to drive my falling apart vehicle), enough for her to say, "Wow, look at that table! Those are worth a lot of money now! Where did you get it?", and I forget that everything I have is vintage, all of this stuff is old, I am so used to being around it. People come here for the first time and either say, "Holy shit, look at all your stuff!", or "Wow, I love that chair, look at that table!", and I say, er, yeah, well, I inherited it. See, everyone died and I have their shit. Which only makes me think what will happen to my shit when I die. Who will get all this, which makes me think of how I really need to write my Will and think of who to leave Gladys and Norma to if I die suddenly and what if I get a stroke or fall in the shower and hit my head, and why is no one in my life??? And then I start to cry writing shit like that, because it fills me with sadness, which I do not need on my luxurious day off...... I don't know what I'm meant to be doing in this life. I do feel the observer, the documenter, but I also feel I should not be alone, that I have set myself up to believe it's my destiny, but that's a defense mechanism, that's me not wanting to feel sad, not wanting to feel overwhelmed like I've made myself feel writing this right now. It will all work out, I know. And the Federal Government has GOT to stop making its citizens feel afraid. Sorry, I just thought of the underlying theme here, how they're telling us to be ready for terrorism this week. How fucked is that? Why do they want us to be afraid? I don't ever want to work again, not for money. Here's what I want, okay? I want to be a wealthy eccentric philanthropist, you know, the crazy cat lady with all the money who lives in the little bungalow down the tree lined street. Or maybe just the one with the cats who lives in the adobe house in New Mexico, painting the clouds, the one with the long Georgia O'Keefe braid wrapped around her head. But there's money, oodles of it, and I don't spend it on me, I give it to Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Audubon Society, Amnesty International, and on and on, they write me proposals and I give them all I can. I don't want to work, I'm not meant to be working, not as I do now. I want to luxuriate in this, forever. Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)
Recent Entries: It Was 40 Years Ago Today - 9:44 a.m. , Friday, Oct. 12, 2012 Dead Black Cat - 9:07 a.m. , Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 As Seen From Outer Space - 1:07 a.m. , Saturday, Dec. 05, 2009 I Survived to Tell the Tale - 7:29 a.m. , Friday, Sept. 18, 2009 Reading My Life - 12:55 p.m. , Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 
  |