What Will Happen When I Get Old

(previously posted on my old blog)

Now that I’ve reached middle age I’ve been contemplating becoming a senior citizen.  I know it’s a little while off yet, but I don’t want it to sneak up on me like this middle age stuff did, so I think I need to develop a plan of some kind.  My husband is 13 years older than me, so the chances are more than likely that someday I’ll be figuring this out for myself anyway.

My kids say “When you’re old enough we’re gonna put you in a home!” jokingly from the line of the movie ‘Stepbrothers’.

My son did say I could come live with them… but he’s not changing diapers.  Hopefully that will buy me a few years before “the home”. 

My daughter-in-law works at a nursing home.  I figure one day she will give me a tour of where she works… she will show me the recreation room, the gardens, the dining room, she will walk me through the kitchen which she is the supervisor of, she will show me the nurses stations and introduce all of the employees to me as we meet them along the way, she will show me the corridors, and then she will say I want you to see how nice the rooms are… and when I go inside one she’ll say isn’t this nice?  Then she will say… glad you like it… it’s yours.

She won’t have a choice… my sons won’t give her an option… it’s that or let me live in her house... FOREVER.  What else is the poor girl gonna do?  I can’t blame her… It’s my kids that need a whoopin, she’s a sweet girl, and I wouldn’t want me around either.

So… That is what I face unless I can come up with a better plan on my own…  I’ve been trying to figure something out for a while now.  I got nothin’. 

I figure I could sell my house and get one of those little bitty one room apartments, but then I think that for me, downsizing means simply getting rid of more of my kids and husbands stuff… it has nothing to do with getting rid of anything of my own and a one bedroom apartment would just never work.

I would have to find someplace that would allow dogs.  All of my life I’ve had a dog with the exception of when I lived in a trailer park for 11 years.  Looking back, those were the unhappiest 11 years of my life… I think it is because I didn’t have a dog.  Yup, wherever I live must allow dogs.

I would stay in my own home but by then I’ll be too old to get in and out the front door to the car.  There’s 8 steps and that just isn’t gonna work for long.  I don’t see any need in a 1 acre lot that I can’t mow either.  On a fixed income I don’t think I could keep up with paying for yard work and maintenance on the yard and home for long.  I’d really rather have my money to keep internet and a cell phone than have the yard look good for the neighbors.  Heck I’m in the house all the time, what do I care what it looks like out there for?  Granny has priorities.  Yep... definitely need to sell my house.

The day will come when my kids will take away my car keys.  I had to do that with my Mother-in-law… nobody in the family had the guts to stand up to her stubbornness.  I think they were more afraid of making her mad than afraid she’d hurt someone else.  I don’t want to put my kids through that mess like we went through with her.  I will just hand them the keys.  Heck, I don’t like to drive now so giving up my keys is no big deal.  I will gladly let them take me where I need to go… as long as I can go in a car… I’m not going anywhere on one of their motorcycles.  I figure I’ll already have one foot on the grave and the other on a banana peel.  I can't see myself in a leather jacket and support hose.  A motorcycle riding granny?  Not me.

My parents always teased my brother and I that when they retired they were going to get an RV and come and stay at my house for a couple of weeks … and eat steak every night… and then go to my brother’s for a couple of weeks and eat steak every night…. Hog the bathroom, plug into our electricity and run up the bill… I always thought they were teasing, and so far I guess that’s what it was since they haven’t pulled up in the driveway in their RV, plugged into my electric and expected steak dinners at my table every night… 

I have 3 boys… I could keep my dogs, sell the house, buy and RV and eat steak every night, In 2 week intervals they would each only be stuck with Mom for 4 months of the year… and when the nightly steak has to go in a blender so I can eat it with a spoon or straw and I finally do need diapers, I will cooperate and go to a home.

Yup, I think my parents had a good plan, even if they were just joking