...both white haired, one in a black car, one in a red, gave me pause again today.
Mrs. Black Car (sorry, I was too busy watching what all was happening with her to notice make and model!) was leaving CVS (a pharmacy, FYI for non-Americans), wielding her cane like a spiffy third leg. Mrs. Red Car (same excuse re: make and model) was arriving, unloading her snappy red walker with the handy wheels, on her way into CVS.
Mrs. BC trembled. Heck, let me be totally frank -- Mrs. BC shook and bobbled from the neck up. I watched her key open her car door, hands steady as a rock, while her head bobbled furiously. I watched her get in, start the car, back it out of its spot, and bobble away, her thin, speckled arms steady on the steering wheel.
Mrs. RC did not bobble. Dressed for the warm weather in a peasant skirt and top, she fetched her walker from the boot of her hatchback, and before pushing her extra legs ahead of her into the store, she drank daintily from a covered bottle of water (I presume -- it'd be a pretty scary thing if she were swigging liquor, don't you think?)
Tears sprang to my eyes. I wiped them away surreptitiously (Mini Me was in the back seat, and I don't cry for anyone to see), but my fingers were chased by more tears. I scrabbled for a pen so I could try to give words to all that I was feeling. Because this non-incident, this little episode out of time, a drop in the bucket of my Sunday, had burst open the floodgates that I had been valiantly holding closed, fingers in the dyke, trying to keep my emotions contained, since Friday morning.
I began to chronicle the moment, and then we left, and I was too busy sniffling quietly, so as not to draw attention to myself, and swallowing the rest of the flood of tears, making sure they did not spill. By the time I got home, I was under control again. I emptied the dishwasher, then repacked it with the dirty dishes in the sink, talked to my friend for almost an hour, and tried to keep HER spirits up (she's the one who was not only rated unsatisfactory, but also discontinued). I had wanted to wait till after her meeting with the union tomorrow to tell her my bad news -- no use in depressing her more, eh? -- but she asked, and I had no choice.
Conversation over, I came upstairs, changed into comfy "yard" clothes (a Jamaican expression for clothes you wear at home), and sat down to transcribe the notes I had begun to make. Why would the sight of two old ladies make me cry, you ask? To answer that, you'll need to come back with me to yesterday. I am on my way to the supermarket to buy breakfast fixings -- eggs, bacon (two kinds) milk, orange juice -- and it occurs to me that in two more years, I will be a "free agent".
Retirement is supposed to free one to move on to the next task in this new phase of life. But it brings new questions, such as, how do I live in the manner to which I have become accustomed if no one will hire me because I'm older? I asked myself that question as I drove out of the supermarket parking lot. Nobody hires 56-year-old ex-assistant principals (that's how old I'll be when I leave the DOE). Heck, no one wants to hire me NOW, for crying out loud -- witness Friday morning's cold rejection! Which makes me ask another question -- am I a has-been? Is menopause NOT, after all, the worst thing that can happen to an older woman?
I've never had to think about being unemployed before. When I was young, fresh out of university, I knew I would get a job. And when I left one, another one always opened for me. I took it all for granted, as my right, almost, for being an upstanding citizen, a dedicated, hard-working person, a valuable contributor to society. I was strong, I was invincible...I was young.
Being rejected for a position I KNOW I could have handled has made me question myself, and wonder if I am really everything I thought I was. I wonder why I was rejected, and all the answers make me feel a combination of anger, frustration, and fear. Overwhelming fear. What if I can't contribute to the family coffers when I leave the DOE? We will lose the house, and have to move...again. What ELSE will we lose because of me? Because I'm older, washed up, useless in a society that only values youth, that sees me and thinks "has been", "over", "past it"?
I cannot get past the vision of me, thirty years from now, head bobbling as I lean on my walker on my way out of the pharmacy. Will THAT be my claim to fame -- that I can drive myself to the pharmacy and back without killing anyone or myself? Will that be all my life will be worth? What can I do to avoid such a pitiful end? I've spent my public life defining myself in terms of my vocation. Without it, what am I? Who am I?
I know this sounds like a self-pitying blog, a whining, boo-hooing blog, but that isn't my intention at all. I'm just scared, for the first time since I was a wet-behind-the-ears BA beginning her first job at Manchester High School in Mandeville, Manchester, Jamaica, West Indies. Any and all suggestions, advice, whatever, will be more than welcome. I'm sinking fast into a pit that not even housework is pulling me from completely...
Maybe this Kenny Chesney song will do the trick, eh?
Remember these, from Yahoo 360 days? We and our friends exchanged loving words of support, admiration and affection with each other in a public way, so anyone who came to visit could see how closely bonded we were. Remember how we deplored the fact that Multiply didn't have such a feature? Most of us gave it up without too much of a struggle, but some of us didn't.
