Some reps for a solar company came to our house two nights ago and presented us with a breakdown of the benefits of going solar.  I had so many questions that these guys couldn’t answer.  Solar is so new.  When the main guy told us that our system would be guaranteed for twenty-five years, and that each system tended to break down after thirty, I asked him about the game plan for replacing a system:  would it be cheaper, since there was already a system in place?  He did not know the answer because there is very little data out there for thirty-year-old solar systems.  Then my husband interjected, “We’ll be in our eighties when that happens, so…” So we’ll be close to cashing out on our lifetimes by then–I believe he was implying with the unfinished sentence.  Shit.

I have fewer years left than what I’ve already lived.  There’s a thought that I didn’t dwell on in my glorious forties.  When you’re in your forties, you think you’re about halfway there. Even when you are forty-nine, you still think you’re at the halfway mark.  When the number rolls over into fifty, you KNOW, you FUCKING KNOW, that you aren’t making it to 100.  Well, I know I’m not making to 100, and neither is my husband.  I’m not aware of any heavy smokers or heavy drinkers who have passed that threshold; but hey, if you can reverse diabetes through diet and lifestyle, perhaps you can reverse liver disease and lung corruption. 

And then there’s that woman in the trance years ago who told me how long I would live, but I will not commit that number to print.  I’ve been fooled by that sorcery before– when I was twelve or thirteen, my sister-in-law asked some deadbeat to give me a reading.  NONE of the shit this woman predicted happened, not even close.  I just spent the next ten years of my life wondering.  She looked at me, and she knew I was smart, so she gave me a future that she envisioned for a smart kid with the prospect of going to college.  It was ridiculous—public speaking, a lab coat, several children.  This woman clearly had no idea how the white-collar world conducted its affairs or who I was.  So no.  I will not commit to a number thrown out there by a clairvoyant.  But, realistically, I’m not making it to 100.

What am I getting at with this, exactly?  I believe that with the passing of my father—an event that I have still not acknowledged on many levels—I have crossed the threshold into their world.  I am now among the oldies; and us oldies handle this shit in very, very different ways.  I am fortunate to have friends of the same age who deal with aging very differently—some were mentally in their fifties before they graduated college.  Some, like me, burned through a few relationships and careers before they found themselves.  Others have had vaginal rejuvenations, boob lifts, and Botox shots.  I’m in some category for women who didn’t expect to ever be fifty, and then one day, there we were.  Intuitively, I knew I would have to face the deaths of my parents one day.  Intuitively, I knew I would be an “oldie” someday—I see the grays coming in—but mentally, I’m not ready for this. 

I’m not ready to make a decision about going solar that will live on past my existence on this earth.  I like the idea of setting this house up for future residents.  Isn’t that nice?  Thinking forward into the future of our kids’ generation and our grandkids’ generation sure is nice.  But, unfortunately, we oldies have to live for the now and the immediate.  We have to secure our long-term care insurance and save for our retirements and make sure we don’t end up where our parents and our grandparents did in those last, demoralizing days.  I say this with all the bravado of a woman who has just witnessed the indignities of “skilled nursing” facilities.  Dad probably had a similar reckoning back when Grandma was carrying around a child’s baby doll and crying at reminders of her real self.  This will not be my future, but this just might be my future.