$1.32 - So ends eight YEARS of service...

Sucks. I just turned in the last paperwork that will finalize my relationship with my last employer. It was one of those big brown envelopes, stuffed with two copies of the final agreement. Both signed and notarized. I walked it down to the local post office (maybe 5 blocks one way).

$1.32 to mail it.

Doesn't seem like a fitting end to eight plus YEARS of service to an organization really. The hope, the projects, all of the good times. The heart ache, the annoyances, the loss of friends along the way. The big plans I had when I first hired on, hoping to retire there...HERE in my home town. Next door to my parents. Family history and family friends all around.

$1.32.

If it was $0.96, it would have been a penny per month...

No sense to it at all...

I'm geting to feel what it's like

I'm getting to feel what it's like to not have a job. Joy. I got let go yesterday.

I'll not be going into the why. I'll not be naming names. It's just a jumble right now in my head and that's where the real story is...in the jumble.

I have fond memories of doing cool things that impressed my boss.

I have fond memories of things going right.

I marvel at some of what that organization was able to do for the communities it served.

Their cast offs were better than most of what I personally had.

It was neat to be part of the team.

And that was then. Now there's just a hole left behind where most of that stuff lived. Eight plus years in size. Fifteen co-workers deep. And the funnel I have to crawl out of now is trying to pull me back into it.

Sucks really.

What is a good son to do?

I'm losing my mom. Day by day, dementia and Alzheimer's is taking her away from Dad and I. My daily interactions tell me more than I want to know. My sisters, when they show up, probably don't see it to the degree that Dad and I do. But, as of late, even they would admit to seeing it.

I and my wife just came back from next door visiting them. We moved them next door several years ago because we saw part of this coming and knew in our hearts that these days would come. I don't think either of us thought it would come on this forcefully, this quickly...

The visit was instigated by Dad, calling us on the phone after dinner in a worried, almost panicky state. He said "Can you come over? Mom wants her ear rings in and I just cannot see to do it anymore. I don't know why she needs them now, but she thinks she does." Dad, fighting macular degeneration (to the extent of being legally blind)...just couldn't deal with her. He can no longer see either her ear rings, nor her ear piercings (holes) to put the ear rings in. But mostly, I fear he doesn't see anything BUT the woman he loves, he married, and said "I do" to, so long ago, and her departure...and it is tearing him apart.

I and my wife looked at each other and went over. Dad met us at the front door. Mom was in her chair, and as my wife talked to my dad, I went over and tried to talk with my mom.

"Mom, it's getting near your bedtime. Do you really want to sleep in your ear rings? Doesn't that hurt you in the middle of the night?"

"But that way I'll be pretty in the morning," she said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'd really like them in."

So, my dear wife came over and put them in for her...no big deal.

On the way out of the house, dad stops us on the front porch and relates to us on the porch that she was in bed, all of about 5 minutes from her normal time to be asleep, and she started to ask question after question:

• Where were her parents? (dead)
• Where were dad's parents? (dead)
• When was he going to get around to marrying her? (51+ years ago)
• ...and on and on...

This had a sincere undertone of grief that really struck me at the time (and as I started to write this blog post). Once my sadness abated a bit, I started to ask some hard questions:

• As Alzheimer's is hereditary, am I seeing a foreshadowing of my own future?
• Will I be stuck doing the same to my sweet wife?

Minimalism as a Strategy for Survival

In several other posts, I've mentioned that I believe in a moderated form of minimalism.  Not to the extreme of the 100 Thing Challenge, but I do believe that owning less "stuff" and, in a sense, cherishing it more makes sense to me.  As I've told my kids, "if a fire or tornado occurred today and we lost everything, the items on your lists would be the first things we'd try to replace."  That level of focus is what drives my minimalism.

In looking over my personal list, these are the everyday items that:

• I use often
• I have actually spent money to "upgrade" (as and when I found something of a better quality than what I had, I'd sell the old one, and buy the new one)
• That I see the need for the in my daily life and actually value having for myself, rather than borrowing/renting it.

I consider all such things to belong on my "valued items list," which is, and probably always will be, a work in progress.

However, I would like to mention that it plays into the current "prepping" culture also.  On the web, in books on Amazon.com, etc., you can find all manor of suggestions about "prepping", ranging from:

• Preparing for a short term natural disaster (typified by the 72-hour "Bug Out Bag" concept)
• Longer term food/famine disaster
• Ultimate demise of the world-wide economic systems (typified by the "Survivalist Farm" concept)

I have no problem endorsing the "bug out bag" as valuable concept, especially here in Tornado Alley (in fact it's just about that season again as I write this), but being knowledgeable about both ends of the spectrum can hardly be considered a bad idea.

As such, I do have a "bug out bag list" that is, much like my "valued items list" a work in progress.

As I compared these two lists, I discovered that they gave me a remarkable focus on defining what all is necessary for my life.  Furthermore, as I continue develop these two lists, I have found that items from one can serve a good use on BOTH lists.  This allows me to move towards a more self-sufficient life, as well as a more compact one. 

I hope these two lists will merge down to an easily transportable set of "things" that would allow me to live, in my retirement, or as needs demand, pretty much anywhere.