It is unusual for me to go two weeks without writing. So where have I been?
Nowhere really. Right here. Staring into my coffee cup. Still in a tangle of phone calls and waiting and more phone calls and more waiting — just trying to access adequate physical therapy for my bum shoulder and zapped hand and cranky back.
I’m so damn tired of pain. Of not sleeping because of it. Of life shutting down in the process.
Where Are We… Really… Behind Our Smiles?
Where have I been? Nowhere really. Right here. Trying to figure out how I’m going to continue to make a living. Writing won’t cut it. Projects are few and far between and pay so little. Mobility issues are a longtime, albeit inconsistent complication to my options.
Where have I been? Nowhere really. Right here. Trying to figure out if I have any value in this society whatsoever as a woman “of a certain age.” Trying to figure out if I am now among the invisible. Trying to figure out how I can survive solo. Trying to navigate my own tenuous emotional territory that results from these “just life” challenges that aren’t particularly unique or interesting.
And according to mortality tables, I have another two decades to look forward to. That is, of course, if I am fortunate, and if other factors don’t reduce my theoretical longevity.
Those factors?
Isolation for one. As this recent Time article informs us that one in three seniors is lonely, and loneliness is damaging:
Studies have long connected loneliness to a range of health issues that could threaten longevity and well-being, including higher risks of heart attacks, strokes, depression, anxiety and early death…
[C]hronic loneliness can impact older adults’ memory, physical well-being, mental health, and life expectancy…
Technically speaking, I may not be a senior yet, but I qualify as “older,” and I’m increasingly feeling it.
Healthy Living. Easy, Right? Not So Fast…
Another factor?
Proper so-called lifestyle or self-care, which we might consider sufficient (healthy) food, sleep, exercise.
It’s hard to sleep when you’re in pain. And we know how issues of sleep-deprivation, pain, and depression are interrelated. Moreover, it’s easy to eat badly (and too much) when you don’t sleep; poor nutrition and overweight are, obviously, detrimental to our health.
Exercise? I do what I can in the “free” category, around my “inconveniences,” like most of us. And I fully admit that I could do with greater discipline on the days that I can and should just take a walk!
I realize there are other factors that too many face — the result of brutal, inescapable poverty. Then again, we don’t like to talk about the poor in this country, now do we… Haven’t you noticed the extent to which all candidates for office tend to speak of “working families?” A few years back at least there was a mention of the millions of Americans living in poverty. The lack of discussion — much less action — is disgraceful. (Must Trump and Russia and the Wall suck all the oxygen out of our political consciousness?)
And what about the so-called working poor — those who are scrapping to make poverty wages?
What about those of us who long ago fell out of the middle class or even the lower middle class into that income rung that is rarely talked about?
What about the millions of us who haven’t had an employment relationship in years, at least in part due to age discrimination — dependent instead on a string of gigs or projects or part-time temp jobs with periods of desperate, demoralizing unemployment and underemployment in between? Do we even show up in a statistic anywhere other than buried in an amorphous, massive and growing stat on portfolio workers?
How many of us who drop through these unemployment and underemployment cracks are 50-somethings or 60-somethings?
Unemployment Is Destructive, Especially as We Age
During the recent 35-day U.S. government shut-down, as media pundits covered the dramatic impacts to more than 800,000 “furloughed” (unpaid) employees and their families, I couldn’t help but think to myself: This is precisely what I have gone through for years. Repeatedly. This insecurity. These fears. These periods of time when I couldn’t afford a prescription or a dentist or PT when it could’ve really made a difference. The accumulation of debt in order to raise my children. Taking every gig and side gig. Periods of selling off anything I could in order to cover another month’s mortgage payment as I prayed that I could turn leads into dollars.
Butting my head up against the reality of ageism in hiring, ageism in retention, ageism even in the land of freelance and independent projects.
Where are the television cameras and the media pundits shining a light on the millions of Americans in their 50s and 60s who are living with this kind of insecurity, and all the same terrible issues that were highlighted among the government workers impacted by the shut-down? Imagine living this way month after month, year after year.
Unemployment is unemployment, underemployment is underemployment, period. Without a working spouse or family support system to help carry the load, and if that load goes on for years, you are SOL. Especially as you grow older.
Buck Up, You Say?
I tell myself to fight, to keep fighting, to never stop fighting. I tell myself that I’m strong, determined, a survivor; I want to be a model for my children, not a burden. I tell myself that I have started over before, and I can start over as many times as necessary. I am starting over now, however much I have stalled, and I just cannot give up. I tell myself that aging, as a woman, has always been an issue in American society.
Then again, I think back to my mother when she was my age. She was still in a job with benefits and remained there for 20 years until she was 65 and retired with a small pension, social security, Medicare, and a 30-year mortgage she was about to pay off. She lived on a modest income, supplemented by renting rooms in her house to graduate students, which she enjoyed. And she was able to get by.
Don’t we all compare ourselves to our parents in some ways? Isn’t part of the American dream that each generation will do a little better than the one that came before? Has that ceased to be the case for too many of us?
“Ah,” you murmur… “but it’s a different world than it was even 20 years ago. And don’t we all enjoy the freedom of being our own boss?”
Right. That’s one view of the remote “independent” lifestyle.
And Then There’s Shame, Such a Shame
Now, as something of an introvert, I enjoy my quiet. Solitude is soothing (in the right dose) and it serves my productivity. But isolation and solitude are not the same. Isolation is one of those risk factors when it comes to health (as mentioned above), and aging on one’s own — as prospects for making a living dwindle — is frightening. It’s frightening even if you’re strong and resourceful.
Frankly, if I’m being honest, feeling my aging — and seeing it in the mirror — is a source of shame. Feeling so unmarketable as a woman, increasingly so, is a source of shame. And it upsets me that I feel this way. But I do.
Worst of all is growing older and not having work. This shreds something deeper in me. Something profound to do with my identity, my place in the world, my value as a person. And again, I feel shame, as much as I know that I have spent years fighting this battle and will, no doubt, continue to do so.
We are a society steeped in shame of all sorts; how little we speak of it.
Where have I been?
Nowhere. Right here — aging and fearful and silent, the silence both a shield and a source of anger; right here — nauseated by politics and politicians and their distorted stats and sound bites; right here — lost in a costly and absurd medical non-system (hello, Medicare starting at 55, please?), starting from scratch each time I relocate; right here — my wheels turning, my brow furrowed, frustrated and worn to the bone, racking my brain for new ways to solve old problems (and make a buck); right here — afraid to express what I am going through on the virtual page lest you judge or scorn or lecture or dismiss — yes, yes, of course I count my blessings; right here — knowing I could still contribute and yet feeling tossed away and almost too tired to protest, as my heart goes out to the millions who are in a similar situation or much, much worse, and I feel powerless to help them.
I’m still here. My “here” is nowhere in particular. Where are you?
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No judging…
No scorn…
No lecture…
No dismissal…
And, No answers..
Except to concur, that knowing one still counts is critical to life!?
?
I was thinking about YOU yesterday!!!
Have you tried to find a JOB that does not require you to WRITE?
That is the next step I would imagine and then you would be around PEOPLE and make NEW FRIENDS.
I am SO SORRY LIFE has NOT turned OUT as YOU had HOPED.
I am SO SORRY the medical issues are STILL a FIGHT!
I am starting THAT FIGHT on MY END……….it’s NO FUN I KNOW!
WE ADORE YOU MS. LILLIPUTIAN !!!!!!
XOXO
I wish you lived where I do. I would help you get back your self esteem! You are an amazing person! Before I left the place I lived for 48 years, I had no idea what my move into the center of a city would be like. I got here and was physically ill for 3 weeks. Then I realized I had stop taking my various meds. I started that day. The next day was better, the next better. I just looked at class a for oldies at a university. And I’m excited.
Try to get out and about among people. Even if it is the grocery, if you smile, they smile. My therapist whom I had to leave when I moved here gave me a stickie note which says “selfness”. You deserve a real life! Hope things improve.
I’ve tried to leave you a comment several times… a long one… but then the page quits and I must start over, so this will be shorter… Where am I? Right here… Where you are… You are not alone when it comes to an aging face and a body that’s in pain and a lack of money. I recently sold something dear to me because I needed the money for bills. I’ll be 70 this summer! Me! Ramborella, professional adventurer. Unflipping believable! My bones are thinning, and no… I can’t imagine anyone hiring me for anything although I’ve run two companies and single handedly did a hostile takeover of a public company. There are millions of women… just like you and me… who are wondering what we do next, but we should never question our value or our worth. I’m a woman of faith, so I believe I’m one of God’s creations, and I wouldn’t be here if He didn’t think I had value. The real question becomes how do I pay for the days I have left, and what do I do with those days? Don’t lose heart! You are not alone. xoxox
Alexis Madrigal just had an article in the Atlantic about “The Servant Economy”–how platforms have sucked away all the opportunities for enterprising individuals, who now must submit to their whims. I see it in writing, too. Companies shun freelancers; they want to deal with agencies or platforms that create a barrier–otherwise the freelancer might seem too much like an employee. And the agencies take a huge cut. Quality doesn’t even matter; all that matters is SEO on your resumé, which nobody verifies.
Meanwhile, companies are looking for ways to shift more and more work to gigs–why pay people during slow stretches when you can get them on demand? It makes it even harder to find full-time work, right at a moment when age discrimination is kicking in.
Good luck to you. I hope you can get your body in shape so it’s one less thing to worry about. Like you, I’ve turned to free exercises like HIIT walking/running. I now do Pilates with a couple of friends, and it’s a high point of my week–a mind and body workout.
Yes indeed – to your first points. And thank you – to your second. ?
So much resonates with me in this post, although I’m very fortunate in having sufficient financial security. But the fears and pain of ageing and the shame and silencing that go along with that, the fear of alienating if we’re not seen to be “resilient” enough — or if we speak fears others don’t want to know about. . . that I can relate to fiercely.
For what it’s worth, I think you’re very brave and ever so articulate. Wishing you healing and movement and companionship, at the very least.
40 something doing contract work after 11 months of unemployment, wondering (hoping) if I can land a full time job again or if ever more precarity is my fate. Glad for work in the meantime though. Crappy ACA plans to deal with as no employer provided insurance.
Our hope for political changes … well the millenial generation got badly screwed economically, they still have some job market advantages that come with youth of course, but they are radicalized, and maybe more focused on economic realities (and environmental issues that will affect them) than The Wall, and Russia, and whatever they try to distract the rest of us with.
Thank you for adding a 40-something voice to the discussion! Did you realize that depending upon the source you reference, the “independent“ or “contingent“ workforce, in other words people working without an employment relationship, is as much as 1/3 of the workforce if not more. That’s over 50 million people. It is scandalous that so many people and those who depend on them are left dangling and frequently desperate to such a large extent, all the while the “great“ economy and low unemployment rate are touted. It’s absurd. And as you mentioned, the ACA plans, while offering some advantages over the way it used to be, are ill-suited to those of us whose incomes fluctuate. Moreover, if you move in order to find more work or find a more affordable location, what is available through the ACA varies in many (critical) ways, not only cost.
I wish you good luck in your working life, and my only unsolicited recommendations (if you would allow) would be to guard your health in all ways that you can, to keep acquiring and honing new skills, to create for yourself as strong a support community as possible that you can count on in the future.
Chronic pain is just the worst, and makes EVERYTHING more difficult. I hope you’re able to get the PT you need (soon!) and are feeling better (SOON!).
The physical challenges you are facing these days sound more than daunting to handle, so the fact that, with so many other stressors piled on as well, you are able to write this post, expressing clearly what so very many of us are feeling, is exceptional!
Hi
Yes I know exactly what you mean almost all the time.
So my frozen shoulder has healed and I have to credit my Chinese accupressurist.
Consider this middle aged Chinese man a gift from the gods.
Perhaps you could ask your local tai chi people for a recommendation.
Hoping for better things.
Have you checked out Beto O’Rourke yet, D.A.?
He has decided to step up to serve all Americans as 2020 presidential candidate! I saw him, listened, and his energy is undeniably impressive and that he is for all the people on topics that you write about. On his Twitter March 22, “We need universal, guaranteed, high-quality health care so every person in this country can see a doctor, afford their prescriptions, and get the care they need.”