Hi jack,

I kind of know what you mean. Who would take care of you if something bad happens, what would that look like and can they afford it?

But what if you’re alone? Freaks me the heck out!

This year, for whatever reason, friends, family, and acquaintances have been dying off. At least one a month if you average it out. (Usually three a month and then nothing ~ clusters). Older people look at me and say, “Well, you’re getting to that age…” It drives me nuts.

So off course now I’m thinking quite a bit on our own mortality.

Sometimes I lay awake at night in a panic. What if my DH dies before me? And what if he dies NOW? I’d be screwed. He’s the type of person who micro manages everything into HIS screwy system! Like he has 100 passwords on one crumpled sheet of paper written in smudged pencil. But then he has gorgeous spread sheets on the household budget. But then he has to dig around 1000 business cards to find the name of the new guy who handles our taxes. And yet has memorized the number of the snow plow guy. And that’s just the household stuff. What about the business??

If you take active steps to prepare for the inevitable, probable and possible, that’s all you can do.

Getting back to disabilities, now I know why people say, “S/he died in his/her sleep, it’s a blessing.” Not even being disabled, but being very old.

I want to be a spry 90 year old who will die in her sleep!! Living in a cottage with my DH! With a personal secretary/house manager to make sure we’re OK if one of us dies first!!

I don’t know if I answered your question/thought, but it did activate an anxiety in me!

Inky

• This reply was modified 8 years, 12 months ago by Inky.

this is me asking me (because someone should): So, what is it that you were afraid of and now realize it ALREADY happened?

this is me answering:

1) I woke up this morning being 54 years old (how the … did that happen)?
More about 1: I woke up this morning to see wrinkles on my face that will not go away except in dim light. I woke up this morning with cellulite…. I woke up this morning with grey hair… I woke up this morning and I am no longer a child, a teenager, a young adult in my 20s, a 30+, a 40+. I woke up this morning and in the best case scenario I have way less life to live than at any other time in the past. I woke up this morning and my digestive system doesn’t work as well as it used to.

2) If I was told before I was born that I was going to be born to a woman that will HURT me, again and again, purposefully, with malice, WANTING to hurt me- I would be scared to death about being born to that woman. Guess what? It already happened.

3) If I was told that my childhood would be wasted on being sick, mentally unwell, I would be so sad and scared of the prospect of living it. It already happened.

4) If I was told that my teenage years, my 20s, my 30s, my 40s will be wasted on sickness and I will not get a redo, I’d be scared to death. It already happened.

5) My fear of feeling pain, great emotional pain… it already happened- and I survived it. The emotional pain did not kill me. And it already happened.

6) When I fear what is yet to happen, that fear I feel about the future, already happened at the time I was fearing the future.

anita

How can you possibly add to my burden, Jack? No need to take responsibility where you have none!

anita

I actually have … A PLAN!! (LOL)

In five years (at a certain AGE) I will hang out with DH when he does paper work, with a notebook in hand. I will write down who we pay and any passwords/websites/phone numbers, etc. I will also make note of any yearly house maintenance routine, what he does when he goes down in the basement to fix the Wifi/electrical/water. Who he calls.

Ten years after that I will do the paperwork WITH him. (See where this is going?)

Ten years after THAT, I will do the paperwork!! (He is older than me and by then will be too old to argue)

And if he dies first and I’m past a certain age, I’ll have a secretary/kids do it or I will be in a home!!!

And in the unlikely event he dies, um, NOW, I’d be in such a grief spiral they can just take the house away!!! And I will “claim refuge in the Buddha” and you can find me at the local Buddhist Meditation Center!!

Jack
I am the disabled person who can’t care for herself. A few years back I had a stroke and how you describe above my life completely changed. But don’t feel bad cause all the things I suddenly can’t do I found clever ways around as a result I’ve learned to be very resourceful. Today as hard as it is to believe I have a good quality of life cause I’m learning a lot new things. Among them how to stop looking for happiness outside ourselves.

I agree though we have to stop taking things for granted while we have them.