Turn on a Dime

Turning on a Dime

An excerpt from the memoirs of a woman who, born midway through the 20th Century lived well into the first half of the 21st. A prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction she possessed an ablity unique among the Humans of her time. She viewed life with an open, exploring, willing mind. Her journals offer a realistic, insightful glimpse into the life's convolutions as experienced by a female not held down by societal "norms" or "contraints". Data and conclusions from studies while in one sense informative do not offer a well-rounded picture of what life was like for those "in the trenches". In order to get the real "nitty gritty" it is necessary to read journals, letters and other forms of personal communication.
My initial forty-three years were spent in the same place. Not the same building, or even the same town but in varying abodes within a 100 mile radius and within a mindset, lifestyle enclave unique but pervasive to the area. Nearly four years ago I left to begin a journey of discovery. Naively I termed it a move from the frenetic pace of the work-a-day world in the Northeastern United Sttes to a slower paced, semi-retirement-that euphemistic term used to denote a drop in income accompanied by continued participation in the work force-in the desert Southwest.
I saved my moeny, purchased land on which to build my home and didn't venture forth until fully equipped to deal with any eventuality that might pop up. I crossed my t's and dotted my i's, planned for every possible contingency. Ah yes, already I hear readers chuckling because of course carefully laid and executed plans were lifted and thoroughly shaken to bits by the unsympathetic winds of irony. Some call this invisible, bludgeoning force Murphy's Law, the lot of Job, any of various colorful and elucidating phrases to describe those times when as a friend of mine so succinctly put it, "life can and does change with the turn of a dime". We are taught from childhood to think ahead, plan for the future, don't do anything without considering all the angles, yet there must be some methematical formula we could plug into to tell us if we should both or not.
Still not getting the ful ramifications of the life lessons being dealt to me I ladi plans to leave the New State I'd moved to. Several months remained in my year-long lease...plenty of time to plan and execute my next move to a more amenable location. Old habits die hard-not a strictly human characteristic but one that often proves our downfall-and this pitfall in my mental makeup would trip me up yet again. I still had some money left and could earn some as I traveled, said the still blind me, to myself.
OK, so meeting one's life partner is the best thing that can happen. That change in plans couldn't Whave been a better one. But as mentioned, totally unplanned on both of our parts. We stayed in what for both of us was a New, Uninhabitable State, fondly referred to by its inhabitants as a Third World Country. Once we'd found each other we should have run. But there is that old saying about hindsight being twenty-twenty. Being new in a relationship and still learning about what made each other tick, created a situation that caused use to dig deeper into the kaliche. We bought a house, then a business, set up home and shop. We closed both and left fifteen months later. The economics of third world countried aren't equipped to support many capitalistic ventures and we joined the retreating masses succumbing to the realities of a poverty stricken state. A situation exacerbated by a narrow minded, self-serving government. Poor planning you might say...well, anyway.
We've left that State and moved to another one. That phrase about not being able to go home again has more than the stereotypical poignant meaning for us. Soaring property values, high taxes, exorbitant fuel bills, high population densities all created by the unwillingness of people who work in the big cities to live there, thus creating a top heavy housing market in the "burbs" makes it economical suicide to attempt a move back "home". The rift between the financially opulent and those financially secure but not opulent has created an unhealthy situation where there is only room for those with vast amounts of money and those with none. Those with none aare the service people hired by the wealthy to take care of them. Those that fall in between have descended through the cracks and once gone find it all but impossible to reestablish themselves.
I've always felt terrible for people who left their country and came to America because they could create a better world for their children. I knew many of them and they didn't like it here. It wasn't home. I now know exactly how they feel. I've been set adrift in the land of my birth and after having viewed the narrow minded, shallow reactionary tactics of the majority of people in this country, feel embarassed and shamed to be called an American.
My partner and I don't have any specific plans anymore. We have a lot of enthusiasm and ideas we would like to implement but we've given up the fallacy of planning. That lesson, at least, has been assimilated.