Abnormally Happy!

I was talking to a friend a couple of day ago that is in pretty much the same situation as I am.  Not currently working (sounds much better than unemployed) and wondering why it doesn’t feel as invigorating and wonderful as the fantasy of being free that played out in her mind many many times during a particularly stressful job tenure.   We are outside the norm.  She’s in her 40’s and I am 54, far too young to be “retired” yet we find ourselves in a similar position.  The difference may be that we are not yet receiving a social security check but I doubt that that particular check is so large that it would make a huge difference in our lifestyle.  Both of us have husbands who work and both of us are fine financially having no or very little debt.  Neither of us really have to work at this point because we need the money.  What a blessing really.  Yet, both of us are a teeny bit depressed.  What should be a shout to the world I AM FREE existence is sometimes more of a WHO AM I NOW quandary.

I never realized how much I was defined by the job I had, by the work I did, until I didn’t have it anymore.   It doesn’t matter what the job.  I have heard the same statement from the mouth of women who were stay at home moms who’s kids have graduated and gone off to college. 

I am now  “outside the norm” and I’m not sure how to handle this newfound role.  I find that instead of enjoying the moment, the down time I have been blessed with , the  stress free days , I am beating myself up for not having a job yet, wondering why the resumes I send out daily haven’t been responded to, wondering what’s wrong with me?   It was good to talk to someone that has had the same emotions.

In my particular case, everyday Joe tells me what I am feeling is normal.  When he was laid off his job a few years ago, he didn’t have the freedom I have.  He found himself in a position that most of us hope to never be in.  Without a job, without a home (because the wife he supported left when the going got tough) and in a new reality. That of the unemployed and over 50 genre.  Starting over at square one.   He didn’t have time to sit around as I do and figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.  He had to take the first thing available or face being in a sleeping bag under a bridge somewhere.    And while his experience was totally different than mine, he admits that the self doubt took hold sometimes. 

Now looking back he is grateful for the experience and for a chance to redefine normal.  Normal for most of our peers is owning a home, a new car now and then,  a little more travel because the kids are grown,  eating out because its convenient and because we can.  LOL  What he discovered and what I am now embracing is a decidedly  abnormal lifestyle.  We live in an RV, not because of necessity but because we love it.  The freedom of knowing that if an opportunity presented itself for us to do something we wanted somewhere other than where we are we could hook up our home and move in ½ hour…..no packing, no lease to break, no realtor to hire to sell our house.   We drive cars that are paid for and that we don’t have to carry full coverage insurance on because we don’t owe the bank or the finance company.  Sure the “new” car we bought  2 days ago is 12 years old.  It runs great and it serves it’s purposes.  And as for eating out, something that had become my norm before I met Joe mainly because cooking for one sucks, it’s more of an inconvenience for me  now.  I’d much rather stay at home, cook food that I have some control over in regard to how it fits my diabetic diet, knowing it’s from a clean kitchen, and that it costs a whole lot less.  I actually find I enjoy going to the Farmers Market and picking out vegetables, shopping the circulars and planning meals for the week.  Not for the money savings (though that’s an added bonus) but because it just feels good to have that option.

All your life you are told that you go to school, you graduate, go on to college or to a technical school, pick a vocation and stick with it.  I daresay that there is even a timeline to the normal life.  By the time you are 25 you should be in your first career job, be married, have kids or be thinking of having kids because  you don’t want to be too old when you have grandkids and/or at the very least that’s what most of your peers are doing, be living in an apartment in most cases, dreaming of owning your own home, driving whatever car your parents came up with for you while you were in college but looking at buying the car you’ve always wanted……well the norm.    That was my norm.  Then as you age your norm changes.  In your 30’s your norm if you have followed the norm for your 20’s you are busy transporting kids here and there, stressing out over making the mortgage payment and the car payment, wondering if you should buy a family car like a van because the “car of your dreams” is a pain in the butt when it comes to car seats and soccer gear, etc. etc.  Then you hit your 40’s where if you followed the norm and you have advanced in your career and are making enough money not to stress over the mortgage and the car payments , you are now trying to figure out how on earth you are going to pay for college for your kids.  And then your 50’s. You can afford the bigger house though you really don’t need it except for the times when your kids and grandkids come to visit.  You can afford a pool in the backyard though it would have been nicer to have had it when the kids were home, you don’t need the family van or the 4 door car anymore and so you think about buying that dream car that you had in your 20’s, you plan weekend trips to get away from the stress of your job and you eat out on a regular basis because you reason it’s cheaper to eat out for 2 than to cook at home.  You get up, go to work, come home, spend time with your spouse, go to bed, get up, go to work, come home and DREAM about the day that you can retire and do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it.

BUT….the world has changed.  It’s not as easy as it used to be to get and retain a job.  A college degree is not as valuable as it once was.  You’ve worked hard all your life but it can be taken from you at a moments notice when you are replaced by a robot, or a younger less experienced albeit cheaper worker.  Houses are more expensive to maintain, the price of gas becomes a factor in your car buying decision and if you are able to put a kid through college without having to take out school loans you are one of the fortunate.  Instead of the empty nest many are experiencing the return to the nest syndrome when their adult kids have to move home for economic reasons.  And then there are the hundreds of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren because the parents can’t.   

I have really began to look forward to my long walks around the RV park with Quincy because I usually run into another RV’r while out and about.  I love hearing their stories.  How they came to be living in an RV..more and more not as a temporary retirement travel vehicle but as their actual home.  What I have found is more and more people that like Joe and I are in the RV lifestyle by choice.  Most of the people in the RV park are in their early 50’s like us or even younger.  Some are doing it because they are following a job, having been forced to go where the jobs are.  Some are doing it because they enjoy being able to travel to and fro without having the hassle of a permanent home.  One lady told me that they had given their home and all its trapping to their son and his wife who would never be able to afford a home on their own even though both were college educated, hard working people .  That they figured if they were going to be living with them anyway, they might as well let them have the hassles.  So they had bought an RV and were living a much more simplified version of life now.  And loving it. 

A few weeks ago, when the idiot kid stole a car and crashed it in the RV park while trying to evade arrest the comments on the news story were varied .  There were several though that were derogatory about living in a mobile/RV community assuming  the kid lived here and stole a Mercedes  because he wanted more than a junkie car and a mobile home.  I found it very offensive to be dumped into the trailer trash category simply because I live in an RV.    When the reality is, that in this park there are RV’s worth more than  a lot of homes.  And there are Mercedes, and Miatas and Porshes, big fancy trucks and nice motorcycles parked in front of most.   It’s time to change the perception.

A lot of homeless people are not homeless because they are lazy but because they are mentally ill and have fallen through the cracks of a healthcare system that isn’t always fair or because they have worked hard all their lives only to have the greedy corporate CEO’s ship their jobs overseas to make more profits for themselves or because they have reached an age where they are no  longer valued for their experience but instead “put out to pasture” long before they should be in favor of a younger, less experienced and less “costly” in terms of salary and benefits counterpart.   Though I suspect if a study were done on the cost of younger workers in regard to medical benefits it would be a wash due to younger workers  pregnancies, female surgeries, etc…. but I digress.

I have a friend who calls me about every other day to check on me.  Her first question is always “so are you still handling the RV ok?”  And no matter how many times I tell her I actually love living in my RV, she is still not convinced.  The fact that this person lives at home, with her parents and is my age crosses my mind every time she asks.  I wouldn’t trade with her for anything.  We are both living outside the norm but for some reason my “new norm” is a source of constant concern to her. 

I love being able to clean my entire house in 30 minutes end to end.  I truly don’t care that I have to walk 200 yards to the laundry on site instead of having a washing machine and dryer of my own.  I like that I have no pool to clean, no expensive car to worry about payments or someone putting a scratch on it.  I like going to the mailbox and getting only junk mail, no bills.  Wow, it felt good to cut up the new credit card I got in the mail the other day because I have embraced a new no debt lifestyle..if I can’t pay cash I don’t need it that badly is my new motto.

The “depression” that creeps in occasionally, the thoughts of “am I good enough, why don’t I have a job, what was the point of going to college and working hard for 35 years, what am I going to do with all the time I have on my hands is manageable. Because the reality is I have it pretty good.  I have it all in a lot of ways.  I have love, I have family, I have a roof over my head, I have transportation, I have food in my pantry and mostly I have faith that  I am exactly where I am supposed to be.  My friend Deronda said “you don’t have a job because maybe God wants you to be unemployed for now”.  I think there is a lot of truth to that and most of the time I would wholeheartedly agree.  I am a firm believer in things happening for a reason.   This time off has taught me a lot of things.  That its ok to be “abnormal”. LOL  That sometimes its’ ok just to “be”.  That my expectations of myself are sometimes a lot higher than those around me expect.  That I have been given a golden opportunity to change course and find new direction for my life.  That I can think “outside the box” and have fun doing it. 

 Yesterday I posted a  To do list that I had “stolen” from a friend’s facebook page.   If  you didn’t  see it here,s what it saidl  

MY TO DO LIST FOR TODAY

Count my blessings

Practice kindness

Let go of what I cannot control

Listen to my heart

Be productive, yet calm

Just breathe

Not only a to do list for me but for now my “job”.   I may not be behind a desk but I am valuable.  I may not be being paid at that moment but I am getting richer by the minute.  I may not be normal but that’s ok.  In a world that values conformity, I am living outside the box.  And for themost part,  it feels good.