The week between Christmas and the New Year found me luxuriating on the sofa between bouts of ADD and irritability so nothing got done. Not watching TV or a video, not out shopping for deals, not checking or writing emails or this blog. Signs of Christmas are around me still. The window candles are in a heap on the floor. The Christmas tree is still decorated because I don't have the heart to take it down. The tree was assembled, put up, and decorated by a dear friend of mine. Being Jewish from NYC, she never had the pleasure or opportunity to do a tree. Afterwards, I entertained her with old stories of fights and frustration that accompanied buying, setting up, decorating and watering a real tree. What's so difficult about stringing lights that can get couples and families so riled up? So the tree stands, as do the collection of nutcrackers lined up in military fashion and several rocking horses from days past when toddlers and little kids played with them. At auntie's house, touching was not off-limits. Usually by this date, everything Christmas is put away. However, as this is the true start of a new decade, it can wait until the mood strikes. This is the decade many of us have been waiting for!
Changes ushered in are in place and taking hold. This decade includes newer attitudes and ways of being for me. My hair has grown out and I've become a blond, again. I've lost a size in clothing, always a reason to gloat for most women. That it was achieved, through an emotional breakdown rather than Weight Watches, really does make a difference. My apartment and its campus have become my convenient home office, though currently I'm still tethered to a workstation computer. That will change. I love teaching English to a new generation of immigrants and the workplace leadership has stabilised. New friends have arrived, others permanently deleted, past relationships have wonderfully resurfaced, while others just passed through. Then there are the proven faithful companions who remind me life is a gift. Each relationship has helped me grow in depth and understanding.
If you were to meet me in person, you'd see a well groomed woman with class, a chic hairstyle, quality clothing and a friendly personality. I'm told that being in my presence confers peace and gentleness upon visitors. Hearing this astonishes me for kindness is as natural as breathing for me. Appearances are very deceiving. My HUD Section 8 housing-choice certificate landed me in a luxury community that has affordable housing. We make the community stable because turnover is high. A Social Security Disability check under a $1,000 a month is what way too many Americans refer to as an "Entitlement Programs". This infestismible amount keeps me from financially drowning and creates the illusion of independence. Between food stamps, and the community food pantry means I have food in the cupboards. I know what it is like, not to have anything to eat. A Fuel Assistance program pays my gas bill. I've been a recipient of Medicare and Mass Health (Massachusetts's Medicaid program) for 15 years. I'm considered a dual eligible for government health care, yet another "Entitlement Program" cause for rampant hysteria about health care in the only Western nation who denies quality health care as a human civil right. In 2010 my prescription costs alone, not including 6 months of copay and the December figures, are topping $12,633.00!
There are plenty of mathematicians, engineers, accountants and bankers in my own clan who'd could figure out exactly how much my medical expenses were in 2010. Fifteen years after being diagnosed with a disease that ravished my professional, social and personal life, change is taking an effect. Any amount calculated will be staggering given that for generations mental illness has always been considered perhaps the most costly disease of all. Everyone has an opinion about health care as the insurance companies of swelling coffers and for-profit hospitals and clinics have become everyday. Gratefully, not in Boston and other great cities.
I foolishly believe that if my birth family and other American families were confronted by the data, the facts, and the numbers, their attitudes might change. This is ridiculous, of course. These "financial hardships" and "medical issues", are rather new emotionally distant attitudes instituted to simply hide Fear. For knowing and loving someone with a serious disease makes them - adults- feel uncomfortable. Boo-hoo! Such compassion less, immaturity and cowardliness to prevent children from providing sustenance to a loved one in need, isn't a Judea-Christian spiritual principle at all.
The next generation are or will soon, achieve the age of emancipation. I'm sure their parents don't appreciate my use of this term, for their years of love, teaching, developing, supporting, investing and providing for their children, opportunities that are rare for most of the world's population. Yes, they can vote and serve in the military, but they can't legally have a beer, a glass of wine or a pomegranate martini. It was the boomer generation with parental support during the Vietnam War that lowered the drinking age to 18. The reasoning being that if you were old enough to vote and to die for your country, you must be old enough to consume spirits. Alcohol, silly, " the demon alcohol", my grandmother called it, has now been driven underground especially on university campuses. One step ahead, two steps back. Do I dare mention cannabis? Also banned during Prohibition, a plant byproduct, enjoyed by the Founders of these United States, as an alternative spiritual gateway, remains absurdly underground and fills an elaborate prison system. Does anyone else see the insanity of all this?
emancipation
- noun
1. the act of freeing or state of being freed; liberation
2. informal freedom from inhibition and convention
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