Sometimes the fear gets to me. The fear of whether this is it, whether we have actually achieved all we are going to in our lives. The fear of how we are going to support ourselves financially up to and beyond retirement. The fear that with the savage cuts in services that are taking place there will be no appropriate care and support for son 2 when he leaves school and home. The fear that son 1 is never now going to have the opportunities that we had.
Most of the time I try to keep the fear at bay. I keep writing and hoping. I grab at occasional small ad-hoc work opportunities which arise and I tell myself we are lucky, we are not in debt and having a severely disabled child at home does bring in a reasonable level of disability benefits and child tax credits. Most are probably not so fortunate.
Recently Hubby met up with some old friends, there were four men in total in their mid-fifties through to early sixties. All are now sadly unemployed and of them only Hubby is signing on, even though he no longer gets Job Seeker's Allowance. If this situation is typical then unemployment figures must be seriously understated and there could be many people just scraping by on the savings they were wise enough to make in better times, not wanting to suffer the indignity of the Job Centre.
I know so many others whose jobs are currently under threat. When I wake early, suffering palpitations, I tell myself we are not alone. No one is safe any more.
2 comments:
hugs x
This new world we find ourselves in really isn't what I'd ever envisaged. I guess we must focus on any positives lest The Fear drags us down.
Scraping by on savings isn't much reward for 40-odd years of toil, is it? Could be a story in there though?
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