Not knowing whether to hope or not

Captain Husband is reading his Calculus book right now. I'm all in favor of this, because it means he is Studying For The Exam. The deadline for the March exam has passed, so the earliest he could take it would be May. I don't know how to support him, I don't know how to help. I don't know how to make this the right path for us to take.

This entry is going to be all over the place. I guess the way to sum it up is to say that I have many fears about the present and the future, but there is a hope that things could be better rather than worse. I find my hands tied regarding that hope, because there is nothing I can do to make it happen. I am alright here in the present moment, although there are things I wouldn't mind having differently. Everything that follows is just me trying to think things through.

I surely would like to be securely middle class. We have enough money to pay for medicine and proper food, and we are about to buy my brother-in-law's car which will give us two running automobiles. We have medical and car insurance. There are thousand ways we could be so much worse off! I am very aware of that all the time. So it seems ungracious or ungrateful to wish for more, when our basic needs are well met. I just have fear, because it feels like we are only a disaster away from being in a bad situation. We're a tiny bit shabby around the edges and there are some things I would like to have, like television and cable, but those are miniscule wants when compared to the way I feel about wanting to live in a nicer place and having financial security.

Before the idea of the actuarial exam was raised, before we even knew what an actuary was, I struggled with the hunger for more and better. It has never for a moment caused me to doubt the wisdom of joining my fate to his, but it has caused some hard thoughts about my life's trajectory. I am nowhere near where I thought I would be at my age. There are a lot of reasons why I am where I am right now, some of them my fault and some of them beyond my control. All I can do about any of it is try not to perpetuate the mistakes and to make efforts to move forward.

That doesn't change the hunger, but at least I don't have to let it rule me. If my desires could die, that would make it much easier, and I would have so much more freedom in my spirit. There is nothing that I truly need that I do not have. All of my wants are about being more comfortable, having things easier, having to deal with less unpleasantness, building up a layer of security between myself and the harshness of the world. That's all very nice, it really is, and there is nothing in the world wrong with wanting those things, but where I am going wrong is by clinging to the idea that things SHOULD be a certain way, and if they aren't that way then something is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Things are exactly as they are supposed to be. I want them to be different, though. And that is where I am getting wrapped around the axle.

Adding a complication to the puzzle of how to reconcile my desires with reality is the fact that none of this is within my control. It's all on Captain Husband to follow through with this. It is entirely up to him whether any of this gets attempted. It's he who has the talent for math, and it's he who would become the actuary. There is nothing I can do to influence events, other than to act as support staff and cheering section, and really hope that he does it. If he doesn't, there is nothing that I can say. It's almost maddening to have this poisonous hope and hopeless resignation battling it out in my heart.

I don't want to be old and have nothing, no savings, not a good safe place to live, worrying about medicine, lonely and isolated. Money can fix all of those things. There are nice places where old people can live where it's a supportive environment, there's help with health needs, there's company from other people the same age, and things to do each day. Not a vacation paradise, but not a bad way to spend the last years. Right now, there's no way to have anything like that. I don't want to end up in a nursing home like the ones I used to work in, but I don't know how much better it would be to struggle to cope with safety issues and declining abilities out on my own, either. I probably will not live to be very old, due to family history and my general health, but I want the time I do spend above ground to be good.

There's no guarantee about anything, though.

Okay, say he did start this career path, it turned out to be something he found fulfilling, and we started becoming more secure and putting money away for when we are old. Let's even assume that he had an unbroken career of a couple of decades without interruption for major disaster. That's the optimum scenario.

Or he might not do any of it and we will continue on as we have been. It's working for now, but we're in a delicately balanced position. And there will be very little put aside for us for when we are old. I have no faith that social security will be available for us, and even then we have not made that much money, so our contributions have not been that great. I might even look back on right now as having been a golden time of peace and plenty. That's pretty humbling to think about.

So I don't know any more than I did when I started this entry, other than realizing how afraid I am of being old and sick and alone. This is something that I need to spend some time with.