Posted by whiterabbit on May 24, 2003, at 15:06:51
This thinking is hard business.
Despite a successful medication regimen, these past couple of weeks I've felt myself sinking into a depressive cycle. The fall is much slower now and the impact not so life-threatning - I've been given a parachute. I still go down, however.I guess I could leave now if I wanted to. My former employer has sent me some paperwork giving me three options on what to do with the money in my retirement fund. I can leave the money where it is, I can roll it over into another savings plan, or I can cash it in. They'll send me a check for the entire amount minus 20% for taxes
(sickening), it's a pretty big chunk of money.
Well, for an unemployed, destitute person like myself, it's considerable. My husband actually said to me, "Why don't you get the money and move out?" I thought he was finished hurting me, but apparently not.My anger and pride, they tell me to take the money and run. (Here I can't help smiling when I think of the white rabbit chasing away the knights in Monty Python's Holy Grail - "Run away! Run away!")But this is my house too. THIS IS MY HOUSE TOO. I don't intend to keep it - it's far too old, much too big, needs too much work. But neither am I going to slink away wounded and let him keep all the spoils. I need a plan.
But when I start thinking of practical matters, I want to panic. I feel overwhelmed, outgunned. I can manipulate words with ease but I'm dreadful with numbers and money. I can't even balance my checkbook, how am I going to get through this??
A year from now I could be standing on the street corner in rags with a cup full of pencils to sell.
It's not fair...I worked so hard for so many years and now I feel like one of those poor Enron people, watching it all drain away...I won't panic. I'll get help. I'll get a financial advisor and a lawyer. I guess.
But for now I'll just sit here and look out this window that I've been looking out of for 17 years,
and know that I won't have this window to look out of anymore in a matter of months. I wish I had someplace else to go that was nearly as familiar. I'm thinking about how nice it would be if somehow, all of us here on PB could have a club to go to where we could be miserable together. All of us have the strength to bear the misfortunes of others, so when our own problems threaten to drag us along and drown us in the swamp, we could run to our Misery Club and listen to somebody else talk about their troubles. I understand this is the premise of all your self-help groups...I don't know, I haven't been a joiner since they kicked me out of Brownies for being so morose.But a Misery Club could be the ticket. It would have a Barnes & Noble-Starbucky feel, or maybe
an old-fashioned men's-club atmosphere without the snobbiness. Big, cushy chairs (oh Lord she's warming up), huge fireplace, thick rugs, and portraits of depressives like Poe and Plath. Instead of cigars in the humidors, there would be Xanax. We could pull up our chairs around the fireplace with our coffee and wine and brandy snifters, and bounce ideas off each other..."Say,
why don't you just kill that b******, he seems awful troublesome."
"Maybe I will, how do you think I should go about it?"Lord I'm cracking up. But I do feel a little better, thanks for listening.
-Gracie
poster:whiterabbit
thread:228885
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030517/msgs/228885.html