I Didn't Go to Woodstock

I didn’t. I should have and I could have but I didn’t. Here is the sad tale.

I had been living in Chicago for a year and I had made some new friends. We had been running around having fun all that time and hadn’t thought things were going to change but they did. The reason I was in Chicago in the first place is because I was supposed to be going to college. I wasn’t. I was “out in the streets” with my friends.

I started out right. I was going to class every day and doing what I was supposed to do. But once I made new friends and started hanging out with them, my days consisted of working at a part time job for a little money and hanging around Old Town every free moment I had. That was where all the cool people and the hippies hung out.

One of the new friends was an Asian girl named Lori and she and I got to be very close. As soon as I got out of school and she got out of work, we would meet and walk up to Old Town and we’d look in the head shops, the record stores, the boutiques and the bars. I don’t know how we did all the walking we did, but we did it every day and night for months.

We started planning to travel and we had a few trips in mind. I had started cutting classes to work more and get more money. Lori and I decided we wanted to go to London for Christmas and so we saved and we got student passes that allowed us to get stand-by tickets on the airlines for half the price.

Mom didn’t want me to go to London, but I was grown and I could do what I wanted, or so I thought. I went to London against her wishes and I had the best time I’d ever had. Of course, it was my first vacation on my own away from family. We found a cheap hotel with no elevator and we had a blast. This trip was so much fun, we decided we had to take another one and we planned a trip to New York in August.

My parents finally realized I wasn’t attending class and that I was just running wild in the city. I had a job and I was working, but they decided it was time for me to come back home. They came to get me in July and we sat together in a bar and watched the men walk on the moon and then they took me home to Galesburg.

A month later, Lori and I flew to New York. We had a friend who had an apartment on the Lower East Side and that is where we stayed. When we got there, she told us about this big concert that was happening about 60 miles north of New York in this place called Woodstock. The Who were playing and so was Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Sly and the Family Stone. It sounded good till I realized it was going to be outside and that the concert would last 3 days. What the hell?

Look, I admit it. I’m prissy. I don’t like being dirty and I never have. When I was a child, if I was outside playing and my hands got dirty, I had to run in the house and wash them. My Mom was trying to put us out so she could have some peace and there I was coming back in every 5 minutes. I guess it irritated her endlessly.

But anyway, I was going to have to sit on a blanket for 3 days and nights?? Use a port-a-let? What would we eat? Sleep? What if it rained? I said no.

Lori said, “Brenda, it’s the Who. Roger and the fringe. Keith Moon and those eyes. You remember.”

Yes I did. We had seen them just a few months before at the Kinetic and we fell even more in love with them than we had been just listening to their music. And we had gone to the hotel afterwards and talked to them more. Yeah, I remembered.

But did I want to sit outside on a farm in the dirt with ducks and crazy people smoking God knows what and walking around naked and ….well, you know. And no, I didn’t.

Another of our friends agreed with me. She wasn’t enthused about an outdoor concert either. I didn’t mind if it was a concert that was over in one day. I could take that. But three days? The tickets were kind of high for us young chicks to swing especially since we’d just flown to New York and wanted to have some fun there. We could go hang out in clubs in the city and dance and meet cute guys and not have to sit in the dirt.

We talked about it all day long. A friend came over who had a car and he was going. He had room for us if we wanted to go. We looked at each other and asked again. Should we go to Woodstock? Did we want to see Sha Na Na? Did we want to see Canned Heat? How about Ten Years After? We did want to see the newest supergroup, Crosby Stills and Nash. But did we want to see them bad enough to sit in the dirt for 3 days?

No.

Our friend left with two girls and the rest of us stayed in New York. We dressed up and went out that night and had a blast. Later the next day, we heard that thousands of people had shown up at the festival. They were coming from everywhere. The freeway was closed and the concert was free because so many people were knocking the fences down and climbing in. It was all over the news.

Lori said to me, “Maybe we should have gone.” I was beginning to realize I’d been wrong. We should have gone. We thought about hitchhiking up there. Yeah, we did that. It was safer back then than now. But our friend reminded us that the roads were blocked with traffic and that we’d never get there.

And then it rained. It rained and rained all night long. We didn’t go out that night.  We ate pizza and sat around listening to music and talking. We thought about what it must have been like to be sitting out there with a howling driving storm like that and once again, we were glad we hadn’t gone.

When our friends came back, yes, they were dirty, but they were lit with a happiness I hadn’t seen in years. They said it was the greatest moment of their lives. They couldn’t describe it, but it had been life changing and though they had been uncomfortable for a short while, the love they felt from everyone, the way they all helped each other and the amazing music they heard made it worth a little dirt.  It was one of the biggest events of our generation and we missed it because I didn’t want to get dirty. I was ready to kick myself.

When the movie came out, we went to see it and we must have seen it 4 times in a row. I was ready to cry. I felt the peace and love just watching the movie. I saw the happy faces and I was angry with myself all over again. We just couldn’t believe that we had been so close and had missed that concert. We loved every moment of that movie and I am sure that we all have seen it at least over a hundred times in our lifetime.

Lori was a good friend. She never once said, “Brenda, we really messed up.” She didn’t blame me although I blamed myself and I still do. If I hadn’t been so prissy and worried about getting dirty, we could have been right there at the greatest concert ever like thousands of other people my age had been.

We could have seen Crosby Stills and Nash perform for the first time in front of people. We could have seen Janis Joplin late that night and Grace Slick early in the morning. We could have seen Jimi play the National Anthem. We could have been there for it all. We had no inkling that hot weekend in New York that it was going to be one of those moments that would change everyone’s lives whether they had been there or not. We didn’t know it was the end of an era. We just didn’t know.

Eventually though, I did go to Woodstock. Years later, when I was married, my husband and I visited a friend in Monticello, We were driving around and she took us to this little shop that was a kind of Woodstock museum. The real one hadn’t been built yet and they were seeking donations to make it come true. I bought some posters and post cards and prints and then we drove over to the sight where the concert took place.

There is a huge marker there with the names of everyone that played and I sat there looking at them and closed my eyes and thought about what had happened there all those years ago. This was hallowed ground now. You could still feel the love and peace that had been there. There was no one there but us and I just sat with my thoughts and realized I really HAD made it to Woodstock after all. Many years later, but I had been there.  I took pictures of the marker, wiped away my tears and left.

I do wish I had gone with Lori. She died last year and I felt even worse that it had been my fault we missed Woodstock.

I think about something Graham Nash said; if everyone who said they’d been to Woodstock really had been there, the Earth would have tilted on its axis. Well, I’m not one of them. I wasn’t there.

I didn’t go to Woodstock. 

And Now What?

One night a few years ago, I noticed an ad on the Internet asking “Could You Have Lupus?” I took the quiz and answered the questions and the results were, talk to your doctor, you may have lupus. No, I said. I’m just stressed and tired and I put it out of my mind.

A few months later, my right hand and arm suddenly swelled up and I could not bend my fingers. If I tried to move my fingers, it hurt. I went to the doctor after nothing seemed to relieve the swelling and I began a battery of tests to determine what the problem was. Was there a blockage to my lymph glands? No. Was it linked to the shoulder surgery I had had a few years prior? No. Were my nerves working properly? Yes. I had an MRI, x-rays, and the whole 9 yards. No answers. I went to a “hand” specialist. Eventually, my doctor suspected rheumatoid arthritis and sent me to a rheumatologist.

All this time, the joint paint had increased to a dull pain level that never stopped. I was born with Beta-Thalassemia, so I was used to some level of pain and I kept going even though I was having more pain and I was getting more and more exhausted from the simplest things.

I could not stand on my feet and lecture my students for longer than 10 minutes before I got dizzy and felt like I had run 50 miles. I was getting more and more cranky and ill tempered since exhaustion and constant pain were becoming a steady part of my life as were the persistent rashes.

I had inexplicably begun to have rashes on my chest and I thought it was from wearing silver necklaces and I had stopped. But I broke out no matter what kind of necklace I wore and soon, even if I wasn’t wearing a necklace!

After two visits to the rheumatologist, she said to me very matter of factly, “You have lupus. It’s a low level right now, but it’s there and you have it,” and she moved on to another subject like it was nothing.

I felt like I had been slammed in the face. I couldn’t think. I just heard those three words, “You have lupus,” and I froze. I thought of people I knew that had lupus that had died. Was this a death sentence? Much later, I realized that I had not stopped her and asked questions.

I went to the Internet again and began to look up all the information I could find. Did this have anything to do with all that I had been through? The problem with my hand, the rashes, coughing, heart racing and the pain? Was it why my hair grew so slowly and was suddenly so thin?

I found this information: “Lupus is an autoimmune disease where the body's immune system becomes hyperactive and attacks normal, healthy tissue. This results in symptoms such as inflammation, swelling, and damage to joints, skin, kidneys, blood, the heart, and lungs.

Under normal function, the immune system makes proteins called antibodies in order to protect and fight against antigens such as viruses and bacteria. Lupus makes the immune system unable to differentiate between antigens and healthy tissue. This leads the immune system to direct antibodies against the healthy tissue - not just antigens - causing swelling, pain, and tissue damage. (* An antigen is a substance capable of inducing a specific immune response.)” (Medical News Today)

Sometimes I think it‘s just a cruel joke and that it’s not real. Then I reach to pick something up and that biting pain in my arm is REAL. I wake up feeling like someone took a baseball bat to my whole body and it takes me a while to get going. Or I go for a walk on a good day and I get halfway home and the fatigue hits me like a sledgehammer and I wonder how I will make it home.

A visit to the doctor drains me so completely that I have to force my legs to keep going and to ignore the pain and the fatigue and somehow I make it home and up the stairs to my bedroom and I fall into bed just barely able to breathe. I ask myself again: Now what?

Lupus is incurable. Because it has so many symptoms, it can be difficult to diagnose and it is hard to treat. More women than men suffer from lupus and African-American women more than white women. This makes the fact that the first drug released for lupus works better for white women than black women baffling. Shouldn’t they have worked to help those who suffer the most?

Since there are different strains of lupus, there are different drugs that we are often given to alleviate the pain, the swelling and other symptoms of the disease. But many of us suffer because some of the drugs have awful side effects or really don’t help that much. And lupus is one of those diseases that does not alter the way you look so you may be in horrible pain and still look pretty good. Try telling someone how you feel when you look good. They often think you are either a hypochondriac or just plain crazy.

Living with lupus is difficult but we keep in mind the alternative and we  remember that having lupus used to be a death sentence. We find a way to go on and have a good life. We have no choice.

Are We Too Old?

I left two jobs in the past ten years because of age discrimination. My position had been eliminated from one company but I could not help but notice that many of my fellow ex-employees were all over 40 years old. There was a lot of gray hair in that room. I wanted to believe that age had nothing to do with it but there were just too many people in that room who were noticeably older. I had a bad feeling.

It was obvious in the second job too. The supervisor that hired me had moved on and a younger woman took her place. She was uncomfortable with us older employees and she’d been there less than a year before all the workers over 40 were gone, me included.

She brought in other younger workers like her and they all hung out together during and after work hours and the rest of us saw the writing on the wall. Her friends came in early, stayed through lunch, went to dinner together and often worked until late in the evening. They were single, lived alone and work was their lives. They were aggressive and pushy and the rest of us were out in the cold.

They were noticeably uncomfortable with us older workers – they didn’t know how to properly address us and because we didn’t share their overwhelming drive, they regarded us as slow-moving losers. It didn’t matter that we knew what we were doing and usually were better at it. We just didn’t fit in. Being with us was like hanging with their parents.

Now that the economy has bottomed out, many of us older workers find it hard to find a job. The unemployment rate for those over 55 has been around 6 percent according to figures obtained by the Government Accountability Office in December 2011. And it takes older workers longer to find new jobs – nearly 35 weeks as opposed to 26 weeks for younger workers.

We have the skills, experience, talent and drive but often, we can’t even get an interview. When we do, we often find we are facing employers who are young enough to be our children and the reality that no matter how good we are, our age will keep us from getting that job. Or we see a job we know we can do but suddenly, there are requirements added to it that we are unfamiliar with. For example, most public relations jobs now want applicants to also be skilled in desktop publishing and graphics. I’ve learned to do some graphics work, but it was never the focus of my training so I don’t even apply for those jobs.

Mature workers are being pushed aside and it’s not even subtle anymore. Many have been without jobs for extended periods of time and what little unemployment they had has run out. Life has suddenly gotten very scary for a lot of people who should be easing into retirement, but are suddenly forced to try to get Social Security or disability benefits way too soon and are often rejected. Everyone is ready to put us on the shelf, but we are not ready to go. We still need to live and pay bills.

Older workers are often excellent workers, are patient, work well with the public and have a strong work ethic. They are willing to learn new skills and can work with much younger supervisors. And yes, we don’t mind teaching younger workers what we know and we can learn a lot from them. It’s a win-win for everyone involved, so why is there so much resistance to hire mature workers?

Some of the reasons given are that older workers want more salaries than some companies are willing to pay. More experience often translates to more money and employers are balking when they can get younger workers for less money. There is also the thought that older workers drive up the cost of benefits because of higher incidents of medical care.

Some employers think that older more experience workers will accept a job while they are looking for another higher paying position and don’t want to risk bringing them on. Looming retirement is another cause for concern as is inability to work with a younger boss.

But one serious problem older workers face is unfamiliarity with the current technology. Many find working with online resumes and applications difficult if they are not familiar with modern job searching. They are at a disadvantage of they have not learned to use the technology available such as computers, tablets, smartphones and social media.

But many of us are very technologically savvy and can work with younger people on an equal basis. And many are energetic and want to work past retirement age. Some will have to as their pensions have vanished in the inclement economic climate.

Employers and employees both will have to forget the assumptions they have about older workers in order to right the wrongs that are keeping qualified workers from having jobs.  

This should not be an Us vs.Them situation. Finding jobs is hard for all of us and we should be willing to work together. Companies benefit when all the employees work to ensure their success.

The Good Wife

Why is everyone piling insult upon the injury in Holly Petraeus’ life? Because she doesn’t look like a hot young model? Because she looks like a 50+ year old woman who raised her family and moved numerous times because of her husband’s job?

Why is it expected that she is supposed to take the blame for his indiscretion? It’s her fault because she isn’t hot? She “let herself go” so it is understandable why he wanted a younger hotter woman ?

What kind of thinking is that?

Maybe it’s because I’m over 50 and I know how drastically the thinking about women changes once we are no longer young and hot. Yes, I know, I don’t look my age but the truth is, I know how old I am. I’m no young hot babe anymore either. 

But should I work harder at the image because it’s “expected” of me? Do I owe it to the world to look desirable way past when it should matter? Why can’t I be loved because I am a kind and loving woman? Because I am intelligent, funny, self-confident and sensual? Why does being older render a woman unlovable?

Life is unkind to women in many ways but to me, one of the coldest realities is that regardless of how good your heart is, how smart you are, how efficient and capable you are, no matter what, if you aren’t “beautiful,” nothing else you are matters that much. We are always first judged by our looks and everything else is secondary.

This becomes especially difficult once you reach that point in life where those pounds are really hard to get rid of. Hard when those lines creep into your face and that gray is taking over your hair. Very hard when those once perky breasts start to go south, that cute butt starts to sag and the waistline has expanded. Yes, there are some women who can delay this aging thing for a while, but let’s be honest, it catches up with all of us eventually.

But does it make you less a woman? To me, it is one of life’s ironies that just when your self-confidence is highest, when you finally get what it’s all about, when you no longer worry about little middling things that really don’t mean that much, when you are at your sexual peak, when you know what you are doing and are most likely to be the best lover ever, you are no longer considered attractive or even desirable.

The men who should be available to you are now attempting to grasp onto their own flagging grip on age are chasing girls half their age. It keeps them young, they say. They want girls who are still able to give them children even after they have raised a set with you and should be anticipating grand children instead. It makes them feel the very thing they say we aren’t – desirable.

We all know what is going on when we see an older balding or gray haired man with a young girl half his age, and we know it isn’t true love. General Petraeus and George Clooney are two different animals. Younger women want George for the same reason older women do – the man is famous, intelligent, rich and he puts the G in gorgeous.

General Petraeus is no George Clooney. Let’s face it, he’s no hunk of burning love. He’s rather skeletal and nervous looking for my taste. But he’s a powerful man and probably has a nickel or two to rub together. Power makes him attractive to younger women. I guarantee you Ms. Broadwell would not have been willing to engage in a verbal catfight over him had he not been who he is.

Men delude themselves every day by thinking that a young hot woman wants his old worn out butt because she loves him. Not true. She wants something from him. She sees him as being some form of security for her and she is willing to offer up her young hot body and even have a child or two in order to get it.

I have had numerous conversations with young women who find the thought of sex with an older man repulsive, but add they will choke back the gag factor if he has enough money.

But all this is overlooked while everyone happily bashes his wife for not being “beautiful.”

Doesn’t it matter that this woman has done valuable charitable work, she has given freely of her own time to help others, she has raised the value of her philandering husband and has suffered in silence over these 37 years of marriage and now must endure public derision because she looks like a 50 plus married woman with children and a life should look?

Why is his cheating her fault? If she had concentrated on her own looks instead of her marriage, her family and her life, we’d say she was shallow and selfish. Did she break some vow by “letting herself go?”

Have we lost sight of the fact that she is the one who was wronged here? If he is prosecuted for his completely ludicrous behavior, it is entirely possible that he will lose his pension and that her life will be economically impacted as well. How is that her fault?

Now he is sitting at home in disgrace. He had to leave his powerful position in the government. He’s right in the media storm as more and more distasteful information comes out about his ridiculous behavior and the silly self centered woman he risked it all for.

And who is sitting by his side, undoubtedly wondering what she did wrong, feeling the pain of knowing her husband cheated on her with a younger, more attractive woman and questioning her own femininity?

And who are we, the public, to add to her pain by blaming her because she isn’t beautiful?

How much does the poor woman have to suffer?

Holly Petraeus did nothing wrong other than marrying a philandering, selfish, lying childish man.

Finding Him……

Once a friend said to me that she hadn’t expected to be single and childless so late in her life. I have to admit, I hadn’t expected that either. I figured though I was having all the fun I wanted, at some point I was going to find a man who loved me and wanted to be with me the rest of our lives. I ran into lots of men, and loved some of them, but none of them turned out to be the one that would light up my life.

Oh, I thought a few of them were. I thought I had gotten lucky a few times but that didn’t seem to pan out. Nothing really wrong with them. I was at fault too. They were good men and there was love involved, but not that kind of love that can weather all the storms. When it got rough, it got really rough and I couldn’t handle it. I realized I had completely lost who I was in the midst of trying to keep him happy and it wasn’t working. He wasn’t happy at all and neither was I. What was I doing? Why?

I met another one and thought he was going to be the one who saved the day for me. Things were sweet for a while but when I really needed him, he wasn’t there. He gave one excuse and then another but nothing to really explain his absence. It became clear to me that he wasn’t the one either. I figured men were in my life for a reason – to teach me a lesson and I hope I learned those lessons. But that didn’t change the fact that basically, I was still alone.

I met one other man who just snatched my heart out of my chest. He was everything I ever wanted except for the fact he wasn’t as honest as he should have been. And apparently he was looking for something other than what I had to give. He wiped his feet on my heart and left.

So here I am. Still alone and hopeful. And yes, older. Am I too old? I don’t think so but I guess some do. I don’t look my age and most of the time, I don’t feel it. Yeah, I have days when the body just doesn’t want to cooperate but don’t we all? That doesn’t always have anything to do with age.

I use the Internet a lot. I know about online dating. I met all the men I had been involved with the past few years online. I had been successful before so I thought I would be again. I was wrong.

I prefer to date white men. If I was a white woman that would be just dandy but I’m not. I’m a black woman and white guys have always been my preference. I’ve not had to face a lot of ruckus over that fact but that’s because I had already embraced my “different-ness” from most of the people I knew and I didn’t care what anybody thought. All those things I liked and did were all a part of my own unique identity and I had no thoughts about changing any of that for anyone.

My parents were of course alarmed and distressed and we had discussions over it but they both realized I wasn’t going to change and they took a deep breath and faced the tact that their baby girl wasn’t going to make their lives easy at all.

Some of my friends understood it and some didn’t. They did what they did and I did what I did. Some thought I was brave because I made the choices I made and I thought some were cowards because they didn’t. It didn’t change anything. We remained friends even if we didn’t agree.

While I wanted a man in my life, I was quite clear about what I wanted and what I didn’t want. The guys I grew up with were just not ready for prime time. They might have been curious or playful, but they weren’t ready to think about having a long term relationship outside their race. That was ok. I really didn’t want to think about that with them either.

Racially, things looked all right in the place where I grew up, but if you scratched that surface, racism was still strong and alive there. No matter what, they still thought they were better than me. And I knew better. I left home as fast as I could for greener pastures. I came home off and on for different reasons and I played around with guys, but I never really got serious about any of them. It just didn’t feel right for me.

I didn’t meet anyone that I wanted to get married to. I didn’t meet anyone that I wanted to reproduce with either. I didn’t sit up at night dreaming of having a big wedding and wearing a white gown or any of that. I thought of it once in a while, but it wasn’t a big thing to me. I wanted to travel and see the world and meet different people. I wanted to have a great job and make money and buy a house and have all the cats and dogs I wanted to have. I wanted to have an active social life and do all kinds of things and have lots of friends. I went to college late and got my requisite degrees and went on about my life. Not one of the men I met was a keeper.

Was this my fault? Was I purposely not looking for men to be lasting and loving mates? I’m not sure about that. It just didn’t happen and I didn’t question it. I went on with my life.

A couple of years ago, I sunk into an awful depression. I had a lot of setbacks and it threw me for a loop. I’ve had moments and perhaps a few weeks where I was down but nothing like this. I lived every day not seeing the sunlight or feeling the air from outside. I sat in my room and though I communicated with people online, I rarely saw anyone outside the people I live with. I didn’t want to. I felt like my feet were stuck in tar and that I couldn’t pull them out. My insides were full of black goo and I couldn’t move. My eyes were coated with darkness and I couldn’t see. I was hopelessly stuck. And I didn’t know it.

It wasn’t until I had to take a trip and get out of the house for almost two weeks that it became clear to me that something had been wrong. I saw a young couple that I loved very much starting their lives together and joyfully expecting a baby in the future. I saw my young nieces, ready for life and not even sure of what to do or where to go. I realized I had lost my voice and I had lost my way. When I came home, I sought help and got it. I’m still struggling with it, but I’m coming out of it. I can move and I can see and most importantly, I can feel.

Ok, I’ve always been a late bloomer. I never did anything on the same timetable as everybody else. I was late finding out about sex. I was slow to have a serious boyfriend. I went to college later. I found my career later. I got married late in life. I know my pattern.

Now I am ready for the man who stops the breath in my chest when he walks in the room. I’m ready to listen to him talk and just smile. I want to see the devilish twinkle in his eyes and feel the love when he looks at me. I want to have the sex that leaves me breathless and sated. I want to laugh with him till I have to run to the bathroom. I want to wake up and look at him and marvel that he is there with me. I want to have fun with him. I want to fight with him and I want to make up with him. I want to share my life with him.

But first, I have to find him. And right now, I don’t know how. Sometimes I’m afraid I will never find him. Other times I think I will spend the rest of my years alone, that I am too old and that it doesn’t matter now. I hope that is not so but I just don’t know what the next move should be. But I won’t give up. I know he is out there, and that he is looking for me too. That’s what keeps me going even when things look bad. Maybe I’m late…but I’m ready. 

Broke in America

I don’t have health insurance. I haven’t had it for well over a year. Like most Americans without insurance, I had it when I had a job. I was paying over $300 a month for coverage for myself and my spouse. We are both over 50 and have a variety of ailments that we need regular medical care for and we take a few prescriptions.

I lost my job a little over two years ago. For a while, COBRA payments were affordable, but as I struggled to live on less than half the regular salary I was earning, it became difficult. My unemployment payment was barely enough to cover my rent and the cable and utilities that I usually paid. I struggled to keep it up, but it was apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to afford it for long.

I went looking for an alternative and realized what a boondoggle it can be to try to shop for it. Every scam artist and desperate sales person must have been just waiting for a dope like me to fill out some questions online because soon, my cell phone was blowing up and I was getting half a dozen emails a day trying to convince me that they were all looking out for my best interest with the plan that was going to work for a couple of middle aged folks like us.

I settled for one and soon regretted my decision. When I was insured, my doctor visits cost me $30. You know how it goes. You have to give those folks your insurance card and pay before you even see a nurse. Somehow that all seems so very cold, but it’s how it is. If you are going to a specialist, it cost $50 a visit. That doesn’t count the tests they say you need or the medications they shove at you. Prescriptions are a huge expense.

This new fangled plan I was shelling out over $200 a month for only covered $50 of my visit and I had to pay the whole lump and get the $50 back later. So if a visit to my doctor cost $250, I had to pay the whole thing and wait a few weeks for the $50. The cost of my prescriptions only dropped by a mere dollar and I was taking a few that cost me well over $40 a month.

My spouse had to have an MRI which about $1000 and the “insurance” company balked at paying it. They only covered $25 or some ridiculous amount like that. Where in America can you get an MRI for $25?? In somebody’s dreams, that’s where. His doctor charged $500 a visit and one of his prescriptions cost over $1000 a month! The agent I spoke to referred me to a mail order plan that would charge $15 a month for each prescription. That had nothing to do with the plan he sold me.

When I sat down and thought about it, I realized I’d been duped and decided to get my money back. I called to cancel the plan and promptly the next day, they deducted the payment out of my meager bank account. It took me nearly a month to get my money back.

What now?

A friend of mine was going to a free clinic and I decided to go too. The people there are kind and helpful and getting in was rather easy. Of course I had to fill out a lot of paperwork to prove I was nearly indigent and that I couldn’t afford to purchase insurance. I did that. When I told them I was stressed to the point that I could not sleep at night, that I lay in bed each night with my stomach twisted in knots worrying how I was going to pay my share of the rent, the cable bill, the gas bill and still eat AND get my prescriptions and perhaps a few personal items like lotion and deodorant, they referred me to the county hospital to see a psychiatrist.

I wasn’t suicidal or homicidal. I was just stressed and afraid. I’ve always been able to handle things and suddenly, I wasn’t able to do it. Every month, something had to wait and wondering what was going to get disconnected for non-payment was frightening. I knew my roommates were doing the best they could, but neither of them were working either.

My brother, my beautiful, proud and strong brother has glaucoma and is nearly blind. He has been suffering for years from a debilitating mystery ailment that has sapped his strength and energy to the point that a trip up the stairs leaves him breathless and he sits at the top of the stairs huffing and puffing like an old man. He’s 55. He has had numerous tests but no one can say what is wrong with him. He sits in his darkened room everyday and it rips my heart out to see it.

He’s unable to go out on the range, riding horses and doing wagon trains with troubled youth as he did for years. He can’t ride his motorcycle anymore. He gets disability but a scheming ex-wife figured out she could get all her back child support and went after him and now she gets half his disability check leaving him a whopping $600 to pay rent, eat and help with bills.

I am not talking about a man who weaseled out of his child support payments. He always made sure he was making payments when he was working, but when he got injured on the job and then lost most of his vision, he wasn’t able to work, but she still wanted her money and her payments are based on a job he lost years ago when his sight first began to go bad. So he fell behind and she did not bother to call and ask why. She demanded her money and so now she gets it. We, however, struggle from month to month on what’s left of his check.

My other roommate had also lost her job and had been getting by on long term temp positions that she has taken the past few years. But when she doesn’t have a job, she has to fall back on unemployment like I was. She’s always been a trooper and has worked hard to help everyone around her and she has always kept us smiling because she’s a walking ray of sunshine.

Not now.

The good times were gone for all three of us. We struggled to keep our cable/internet paid because it provided the only entertainment we could afford to have. We almost never have enough money to go out for fun and restaurants are out of the question. Once in a while, we could scrap up some change and use coupons to go to IHOP for breakfast but those times are few and far between.  The last time we all went out to dinner, we came home and found that we had been robbed. All of our computers and software and a couple of cameras had been stolen.

I am a writer, and I use my laptop to work. My roommate is a graphic artist/designer and she had just bought her computer not a month before. The thieves even took every bit of her expensive software. Oh, yeah, and they broke in and stole our lawn mower too.

So in the midst of all this, yes, I was having a difficult time. I had fallen into a deep depression and I knew I needed help. I went to the county hospital and found that also is a tricky thing. I had to be at the clinic before 7 a.m. because they only see so many people each day and if I am late, I have to come back and stand in line again. I finally got in and saw a doctor and told her that I wasn’t going to hurt myself or anyone else, but that I wanted to go to sleep and not worry. She gave me a couple of prescriptions and sent me home.

I no longer have the luxury of making my own appointments when I go to the county hospital. They tell me when I have to be there. She told me to get an appointment with another doctor to try to find a way to handle another ailment I have and I dutifully took the charge sheet she gave me and gave it to the nurse as directed.

The nurse was busy and looked at me like I had two heads when I relayed what the doctor told me. She said to write my name and address on a piece of paper and she would send me a letter and tell me when my appointment would be. Four months later, I got the letter and she had made the appointment with the wrong doctor for the wrong ailment, so I wasted two more trips with that doctor and now, nine months later, I still have not seen the doctor I was supposed to see and this is after the second doctor also attempted to get an appointment. That is my reality now.

I still go to the clinic for the rest of my care. The place is crowded now when I go and I have to wait longer. There are a lot of people like me who cannot afford health care.  I needed to have my prescriptions written again and I waited more than an hour to see a doctor who promptly forgot to write one of them. I asked to be signed up for prescription assistance because in all this time, Congress graciously decided that people like me didn’t need unemployment anymore and my benefits were discontinued. Now I have no money coming in, but those bills are still coming.

I now know how those elderly on Medicare feel. There are times I can’t get my prescriptions because I can’t afford them. I am lucky that I got a bit of assistance with food stamps, but when I applied for state medical aid, they denied me because I am “employable.” Tell that to the jobs I have applied for over these two years that haven’t even bothered to tell me to go take a flying leap. I’m too old to get a job it seems. But I’m also too young to get Social Security or disability. So I’m sitting here terrified and mortified again because I can’t pay my part of the bills.

This nightmare that we are living in is no joke. I wonder what the elected officials are thinking when they slash the benefits for the elderly and the disadvantaged. Do they really believe we are living the high life on $300 a week? My brother got a letter today saying that his medical assistance from the state of Illinois is going to be discontinued after this month. Luckily he bought an insurance plan to cover his prescriptions because he has a few that cost $200 a month without insurance or any kind of assistance.

How can they in good conscience make decisions that so deeply affect people like us? Do they sleep at night? Do they look in the mirror and say “There by the Grace of God go I” and realize that they could very well be in the same circumstances that we are?

We are educated people who have always had good jobs. We’ve always worked hard and never had to ask for assistance. We have worked in service to help others and though we have never earned a huge salary like some, we have always been able to live and have some pleasures in life. Now we sit down to the dinner table and look at each other like frightened deer. The house we live in is in foreclosure and we are behind in rent. Not badly. We managed to keep it up as long as we could, and she worked with us, but it has gotten a bit harder now. She is underwater and is struggling too.

What has happened? When we go for a drive, which is rare, with the price of gas and parking, we see these huge houses and folks walking around their big expensive cars and taking little Suzie into American Girl to buy her a doll that is so expensive it would pay our electric bill. They are all smiling and happy and seemingly don’t have a care in the world.

Where did we go wrong? Did we not work hard enough? Did we not get our education? We have been good citizens. We have never been in trouble, we always paid our bills, we vote in every election. We have volunteered and worked in community service and we are good hard working people. When did it get so hard to be just regular folks? And how long will this last?

And everybody is fighting and scrapping for every dime we have. It seems that everywhere you look there are ads. You can’t look at a news story, or even a music video on You Tube without sitting through an ad or two. Don’t these folks realize we are broke???

I was especially outdone with the ads that ran during Christmas. It seems there are a lot of folks who can afford to buy their mates expensive cars and put big bows on them for Christmas presents. Wow. I don’t know anyone who can do that.

I don’t know what is to become of us. How can we even consider ourselves a great nation when we cannot keep our people fed and clothed and in decent housing? When they cannot get the medicine to remain in relatively good health? What happens if they fall gravely ill or have an accident and require extensive medical care?

How long will this madness last?

Dignity

Ladies, say the word with me. D-I-G-N-I-T-Y. It’s something we all need to keep in mind and never forget – especially when we are dealing with men. Let me elaborate.
Some of us start getting worried about getting married when we are in our 30’s or 40’s. We wonder if we have done something wrong, if we have been too picky or that something has passed us by. By this point in our life, we have lowered our standards a bit which really is a good thing. We are no longer looking for only drop dead gorgeous men and we usually understand that a bad boy is just that – a bad boy.

So we start wondering where we have to go to meet Mr. Right. We go to the grocery store and stay too long – spending too much money. We go to the Laundromat when we know we have a perfectly good washer at home. We go to church and anyplace else we think will work in our favor. Sometimes we dress a bit too provocatively and if we go out with our friends, it no longer is a night with girlfriends – it’s a hunting expedition. And we’re serious about it. Hungry eyes watch every single man that enters and wonder if he might be The One.

It’s about this time that we get envious of the younger women. For some of us, things start going south and we see lines in our face in the mirror and every day we see a few more gray hairs. Our bodies are not taut and tight like they used to be and we can’t help but wish early transmission failure on the young skinny girls getting all the attention.
And when a guy does come talk to us, we have been known to think, “well, he’s not all that cute, but he does like ME,” and he starts not to look so bad. The question in our head is will he be a good husband and could he support a family? And if we think he is a good candidate, it’s about then that our dignity goes right out the window. We can protest all we want to but we are in the first steps of settling and settling is never good.

We all have a list of things we want in a man and as we get older, that list can be less and less important. Because we want to settle down and have a family, we are willing to strike a few things off that list, and in doing this, we build up the ego of a man who might not be worthy of us and before long, we have created a monster.

Men assume that they are valuable commodities and if he is good looking, rich, and all that, he doesn’t think he has to have just one woman. He usually has several women in and out of his life and you have to decide you want to be one of the harem. They also know that we want them and we will tolerate their bad behavior just to be with them.

Ladies, ladies, ladies! Let’s back up. If you were busy with your career or if you were having fun before you started thinking about settling down, that is what you were supposed to be doing. Perhaps you weren’t ready to have a marriage and kids when you’re 25. All of us aren’t. I believe we need to get those demons worked out and get drunk till you puke and ride the electronic bull and go on spring break while you are still single. Have your fun! It’s ok!

And if you were becoming the corporate maven, again, good for you. If you have worked at that early in your life and you may have a nice little nest egg and you have learned a lot and it will help you later. There are some who believe a girl shouldn’t take her career so seriously but I disagree. If it’s what you want, go for it. Just remember having it all means you have to do it all and not all of us are able to do that without some resentment and anger later on that will eventually destroy your relationship.
When that day comes and you decide you are ready, keep in mind all the things you have been through. Recognize that you are successful and that you have worked hard and deserve only the best. Be proud of what you have done and maintain that pride as you begin to look for a mate.
Settling is never good. Eventually, you will tire of him or you will be resentful and if that happens AFTER you have walked down the aisle and brought Junior home, which will be a lot of trouble for you all. If you date a man who isn’t worthy of you and you allow him to treat you badly, well, you know you made a mistake. Now what? Do you really want to wake up in the middle of the night and look at him sleeping and wish you were anywhere else but there with him?

Do you want to be in a relationship with a man you settled for because you were desperate and then meet the man you SHOULD be with? Or do you want to engage in an affair because you are unhappy with the man in your life and that will be a lot of trouble for you all. If you date a man who isn’t worthy of you and you allow him to treat you badly, well, you know you made a mistake. Now what? Do you really want to wake up in the middle of the night and look at him sleeping and wish you were anywhere else but there with him? Why complicate your life that way?

If a man tries to hit on you and you know you really don’t like him, say no thank you and keep moving. If you see he has a mean streak, walk girl. Walk fast. And if he’s violent? Don’t even look back.
Don’t get the baby blues and get pregnant and have the father walk off and leave you with the responsibility of raising your child alone. Keep those contraceptives close and use them. Do you want to be on the Maury Show, trying to get the baby daddy to recognize his child? “Jerome, you ARE the father!” Do you really want that? Think about it.

If he has two or three baby mamas, do you really want to be caught up in all that
drama? If he has to give all those women money, will he still be able to give you the life
you want? And if you don’t have children, do you want your weekends to be devoted to
taking care of his children? Please stop and take the time to think about the life you are
consenting to and if it isn’t what you want, don’t settle just so you have a man. You will
regret it later.

Keep your dignity intact, girl. Don’t settle. Stay clear about what your goals are and stick to your guns. It might take a little longer but wait for the right one. Hold out for your joy and remember that you are worthy of having the love you seek. If you have chosen to date interracially, you have given yourself better odds. And don’t date the first white guy that approaches you. Wait for the right rainbeau. People can smell desperation a mile away and it’s not a good scent for you.

Don’t sit in your house and complain that you can’t find the right one and whine that all the good men are gone. They are not. They might be a little harder to find these days, but they are not gone.  You may need to be patient but don’t give up and don’t give in to the wrong one.

Maintain your dignity. Please.

A Peculiar Situation

There exists a fragile relationship between white women and black women. Sometimes we can be close friends and sometimes, we square off like two combatants in the ring, warily eying each other. I think basically we want to be friends and like each other. As women, we understand that we share so many of the same issues but external things (like men and jobs) always seem to come between us.
When I was a young woman and just entering the fray of women’s rights, black women complained that white women didn’t understand the true depth of our plight. There became a rift – ‘womanists” and “feminists” which basically was the same thing, but one was black and one was white. I just shook my head in frustration because I was and still am tired of divisions caused by race. I joined in and tried not to offend either group and I still think of myself as just a woman who wants to be treated fairly.

Is it that we don’t trust each other? I suppose it could be. Stereotypes have reared their ugly heads in many a budding friendship between women of different races. They think of us as inferior and not as bright and we see them as dizzy white girls. Is it resentment? Sure. Black women have had to deal with the sobering fact that when it comes to the equation of choice, most men would choose a white woman or even an Asian woman over us. It’s hard not to be a bit cranky about that.
I have seen the hurt and anger in a black woman’s eyes when she sees a black man with a white woman. She feels all kinds of rejection and resentment. I date white guys so it has never bothered me. But there are thousands of sisters who feel the bite of rejection when they see that. Once again, we come in second. I can relate to that feeling.

Sisters get really riled with the never ending idea that our culture pushes at us – white women are superior, they are the ideal and we are just second rate. I remember the days of the back-handed compliment, “You’re pretty for a black girl,” which implies that black women are generally ugly, but I am an anomaly. Or when they used to say “Oh, you look just like Diana Ross!” Or Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, or whichever black woman was popular at that time. So I’m not attractive unless I remind you of a black woman you are used to looking at? Yeah, you’d be resentful too.
 How many years did it take for cosmetic companies to start formulating make-up and skin care in the many shades we come in? Or proper hair products for us? It took Madison Avenue a long time to realize that women come in all colors. And sizes, but I’m not going there right now.

I have known black women who want to date white men but have a deep abiding hatred of white women. I ask them how they think they will get along with his sister, mother, aunts, etc. How can you love him and hate them?

Yes, I have known some very arrogant white women who looked down their nose at me. With a toss of their hair they dismissed me as any kind of threat in their quest to find “The One.” Because of their assumed right to the throne of womanhood, they never thought anyone would dare pass them up and look at lowly me. Some of those girls had a lesson to learn. Some men like us and all those men aren’t black. Surprise!

 I think it’s kind of funny when you’re out and about and you meet a white girl and you are talking and in a very patronizing way, she points out the black guys saying how hot they are. I tell her to go after them and point out the one I like which just happens to be the one she likes. I love that look on their faces at that moment that they realize I am more of a threat than she ever expected.
I have had close white girlfriends since I was about 13. I never saw anything wrong with it, though some of my black friends and family did. I have never had to compete with my friends nor have I ever wondered about trusting them as friends - most of them, anyway. I have friends I know I can always count on through thick and thin and I know they love me every bit as much as I love them. I am very lucky there.

I don’t hate white women. I don’t like the way they are lauded over and the sense of entitlement that some of them have. I know that I am just as good as they are and I feel I should be considered to be just as much a woman as they are. And isn’t that what it’s all about? I mean, after all, we are all women. We share more than we realize sometimes and we should be able to stand together and support each other when things get tough. No petty jealousies. Just women standing together to face the world.

I love that.