The Gamble of Life

Life is unpredictable. And at my age, it's also a gamble. I find myself at a stage where I'm having to make decisions now about my future security. It can be something as simple as deciding whether to take a weekend trip. Or whether to stick away the money a trip would cost for later years. I have one decade to save for retirement, and I haven't done much in that direction so far. I waffle back and forth between having it all now, taking trips while I'm still young enough to enjoy them, or pinching my pennies and socking it away for my elderly years.

Here's the rub: What if my elderly years don't come? Who knows what will happen between now and then? My mother socked it away, she took trips, too, but she invested her money and had all the retirement programs that came with her job. She did all the essentials financial advisers tell you to do, and what happened? She died at 64. I think about Mother a lot when I start thinking about financial security. She was disappointed that she had worked so many years and would never even collect on her Social Security. She mentioned it to me, in her last weeks before lung cancer finally took her. She said it was the thing that made her the angriest about dying, all that careful planning, basically for nothing.

My SO also has a sort of laissez-faire philosophy about retirement, and he's closer to it than I am. But he has also had his cancer-death scare, and feels reluctant to deny himself anything because of it. He says when you're lying there, the radiation mask over your face, you make all sorts of resolutions about things you're going to do, if you can just make it through one more week of treatment, if you can just beat the disease. And I do see the senselessness of saving for the future if that future never comes.

We had friends over last night. This is the friend who went into a coma after knee surgery. He's so much improved, but his ordeal is clearly marked on his face. And he still has moments of confusion. He's not ready to resume life as it was, not quite yet. He, to me, is the poster child for the slender thread we walk in life.

I bought a greenhouse kit. It's supposed to arrived via FedEx the middle of next week. My sweetheart is dreading the prospect, but he's so patient with me and my tangents. He seems to always want to make me happy. I can't believe how I lucked out finding such an affectionate and caring man. The gamble of life again, I guess. Anyway, I need someplace to put all my established foliage plants, and it will be fun to start seeds there, maybe take cuttings again. I enjoy growing things from cuttings, and you need a greenhouse to do it properly. Daddy's excited about it. I think the greenhouse will give him an excuse to come over more, and that will be a good thing, too.

Think I've finished the children's book. A friend whose an elementary school teacher read it and really bragged on how much she loved the character, said she would definitely read it to her class when it's published. She seemed so certain it would be. She made a suggestion for the ending, said it was a little too abrupt, and so I have worked on it and think I've made it better. I might be ready to submit it to a publisher now. Don't know why that's scaring me a little. Got to man up, as they say. Be brave. I've been down this road before, after all. It's just been awhile.

Onward ....