I know that it must be about time for me to take a vacation and get the heck away from things for a while. Lately, I find that little things just get on my last nerve more than usual, and I suppose this can be chalked up to fatigue, feeling overwhelmed by things and just all around annoyance with the world around me. It doesn't help that the past week has been oppressively hot and humid, unusually early in the summer for such intense heat, which portends a long, hot summer. Fortunately, my brother installed my window air conditioner in my living room window, which cools down at least one room considerably on hot days. That does help quite a bit, but I've been feeling rather cranky lately about a host of other things, like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and how everyone's trying to blame Obama for it, and the weak health care reform bill which will do absolutely nothing to help folks like me who are already insured but stuck with high deductible, high co-pay insurance plans, the fact that I mashed my left little toe at the grocery store a few weeks ago and it still hurts enough to have to keep it bandaged and I do not need that this time of year (and I can't afford to have the doctor look at it because I can't afford X-rays that my insurance won't pay for), wanting a pair of Birkenstock clogs to wear to work this summer but not being able to afford them because of the ridiculous cost of having a lift put on the left shoe, something my insurance won't pay for despite having a doctor's prescription for it, my being tired as hell of having a short left leg and just wanting two legs of the same length again.....I could go on and on, but you see where this is going. Get me going on one thing and it leads to yet another. Lots of things weighing on my mind of late and they can really add up to cause me a great deal of stress. On top of that, trying to make ends meet when my pay has remained flat and prices are continuing to go up is also causing me a great deal of stress.
It seems like the longer I stay at my job, the less I ultimately end up making, which is why I have decided to retire sometime in the year 2013 once I have achieved 30 years of service at my job - unless, of course, the entire public employee retirement system is changed, and lately the newspapers have been rife with articles complaining about public employee retirement systems in Ohio. My big fear is that they will change it from 30 years and out to having to wait until you're 65, meaning I'd have to wait until the year 2022 before I could retire. As it is, I still won't be eligible for Medicare until then, so I am also stressing over fear that by the time I retire, our health care plan will be no better than what I have now, with high deductibles and high co-pays until I am Medicare eligible in 12 years. Now that I am closing in on my retirement years, a whole new set of stresses weighs on me: will I be able to retire, or will there be changes in the Ohio Public Employee Retirement System forcing me to delay my planned retirement? Will I have a decent health care plan by the time I retire? Will I be able to afford living on two thirds of my final salary? I'm in my final three years of earning which will determine my retirement pension and my salary has remained flat for a long time now due to our tanked economy both nationally and state-wide, so of course, I am worrying about that. I worry that Republicans will win all the elections state-wide and nationally in the fall midterms and will screw things up the way that they are so good at doing. Doubtless if they get a big enough majority, they will try to repeal the health care reform bill passed earlier this year, they will probably screw up the public employee retirement system in the State House and make it impossible for me to retire when I plan to, they'll find some way to excoriate the Governor and the President and make it so hard for them to do their jobs that they will end up looking like failed politicians for not being able to enact their agendas...so many things I worry about on a day to day basis. It doesn't take much to make me feel like no one out there has a bit of common sense or civility anymore. All people do anymore is spend time shouting each other down instead of trying to engage in civil dialogue where people actually listen and reason and try to meet each other half way instead of taking entrenched positions from which they refuse to budge. It's enough to make me wonder if we haven't reached a tipping point past where consensus and civil dialogue are a thing of the past and are no longer possible in our modern day environment. It would be sad if that were the "new normal", to say the least.
I know that it must be about time for me to take a vacation and get the heck away from things for a while. Lately, I find that little things just get on my last nerve more than usual, and I suppose this can be chalked up to fatigue, feeling overwhelmed by things and just all around annoyance with the world around me. It doesn't help that the past week has been oppressively hot and humid, unusually early in the summer for such intense heat, which portends a long, hot summer. Fortunately, my brother installed my window air conditioner in my living room window, which cools down at least one room considerably on hot days. That does help quite a bit, but I've been feeling rather cranky lately about a host of other things, like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and how everyone's trying to blame Obama for it, and the weak health care reform bill which will do absolutely nothing to help folks like me who are already insured but stuck with high deductible, high co-pay insurance plans, the fact that I mashed my left little toe at the grocery store a few weeks ago and it still hurts enough to have to keep it bandaged and I do not need that this time of year (and I can't afford to have the doctor look at it because I can't afford X-rays that my insurance won't pay for), wanting a pair of Birkenstock clogs to wear to work this summer but not being able to afford them because of the ridiculous cost of having a lift put on the left shoe, something my insurance won't pay for despite having a doctor's prescription for it, my being tired as hell of having a short left leg and just wanting two legs of the same length again.....I could go on and on, but you see where this is going. Get me going on one thing and it leads to yet another. Lots of things weighing on my mind of late and they can really add up to cause me a great deal of stress. On top of that, trying to make ends meet when my pay has remained flat and prices are continuing to go up is also causing me a great deal of stress.
It seems like the longer I stay at my job, the less I ultimately end up making, which is why I have decided to retire sometime in the year 2013 once I have achieved 30 years of service at my job - unless, of course, the entire public employee retirement system is changed, and lately the newspapers have been rife with articles complaining about public employee retirement systems in Ohio. My big fear is that they will change it from 30 years and out to having to wait until you're 65, meaning I'd have to wait until the year 2022 before I could retire. As it is, I still won't be eligible for Medicare until then, so I am also stressing over fear that by the time I retire, our health care plan will be no better than what I have now, with high deductibles and high co-pays until I am Medicare eligible in 12 years. Now that I am closing in on my retirement years, a whole new set of stresses weighs on me: will I be able to retire, or will there be changes in the Ohio Public Employee Retirement System forcing me to delay my planned retirement? Will I have a decent health care plan by the time I retire? Will I be able to afford living on two thirds of my final salary? I'm in my final three years of earning which will determine my retirement pension and my salary has remained flat for a long time now due to our tanked economy both nationally and state-wide, so of course, I am worrying about that. I worry that Republicans will win all the elections state-wide and nationally in the fall midterms and will screw things up the way that they are so good at doing. Doubtless if they get a big enough majority, they will try to repeal the health care reform bill passed earlier this year, they will probably screw up the public employee retirement system in the State House and make it impossible for me to retire when I plan to, they'll find some way to excoriate the Governor and the President and make it so hard for them to do their jobs that they will end up looking like failed politicians for not being able to enact their agendas...so many things I worry about on a day to day basis. It doesn't take much to make me feel like no one out there has a bit of common sense or civility anymore. All people do anymore is spend time shouting each other down instead of trying to engage in civil dialogue where people actually listen and reason and try to meet each other half way instead of taking entrenched positions from which they refuse to budge. It's enough to make me wonder if we haven't reached a tipping point past where consensus and civil dialogue are a thing of the past and are no longer possible in our modern day environment. It would be sad if that were the "new normal", to say the least.
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