The Life (Ending) of an ATR

It's impossible for me to be calm, except for the few moments I am resting alongside one of my cats. Even then, unless I fall asleep, my body won't settle in. I sleep in fits and starts, and sometimes not at all.

October 2009 seems far away to some people. It isn't to me. It's tomorrow. It's moving boxes from my apartment to a share. It's living on half my salary at a job I may not be able to keep, either. The continual worry that my life is one step from the streets.

What do I re-train as? I've been asking myself this for years because I don't know. The vistas keep changing. What do I have money and time to learn? What professions are welcoming to people over 40 who switch careers?

Everyone has an answer and whom do you trust. No one is pragmatic enough or completely sees my situation for what it is -- people either think that it will be simple to live on half the money, or that my job prospects are better than they are.

What did I do to deserve this? Is this the what I get for having come into the system in the early 90's when the UFT made all sorts of bargains to help young people enter the profession. People took pay cuts, but they didn't give up their jobs.

The bottom line, and I was finally able to put it into words tonight, is that I see the end of my life coming toward me and I don't think there's anything I can do about it. That's what I see. Every day. Beyond the sunshine and the trees and all of nature's beauty. I try to hide it from my cats if I can.

I see the end of my life coming toward me and I don't know what to do about it.

I see the end of my life coming toward me and I don't know what to do about it.

I see the end of my life coming toward me and I don't know what to do about it.

I don't know how to stop it.