Smack in the middle of vacation season, today I applied for my right to my money that's been set aside by my own Uncle Sam out of my paychecks for my retirement for the past 49-years. How sweet of him.
Vacation season? Well, isn't that normally when the sun's to our backs as we linger with toes in the sand and conjured dreams of retirement? So, it's only fitting that today's the day I begin making my way to fulfilling that dream.
But it wasn't all a party this morning as I stood in line with at least 60 other people, waiting to see a Social Security professional. Like a fool, instead of celebrating my additional income that will begin in November, I got caught up in all these thoughts of when I was in high school.
Like, when did this happen? What the hell?
Just yesterday I was trying out for the flag corp. In fact, just yesterday I got in trouble for wearing my skirt too short and had to be picked up from school by my dad. (Whom, by the way, thought I looked great and thought the dress code was too firm. -- Some things never change.) Yesterday I walked out of my English class, because the teacher was leading the students in a heated debate about the Vietnam conflict. I didn't think that was the place to be talking about war. So, I left. Yesterday my big sister was teaching me how to put on panty hose. Yesterday I was making plans for the annual Spirit Week that culminated with a great football game and a fun Homecoming dance. Yesterday I auditioned for a part in the senior play, and got it! Yesterday I skipped my typing class, because "I'm never, ever going to be some man's secretary." Yesterday I posed for my senior photo in the yearbook. Yesterday we voted on our class song, "Wooden Ships" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Yesterday I was spending my summers at camp in Leesburg. Yesterday my girlfriends and I were inseparable.
Yesterday I could eat ANYTHING!
Yesterday I didn't have a care in the world.
Yesterday things were easy.
So, there I am standing in line at the local Social Security office and instead of having a private celebration, I'm having what I think is a very public mini-breakdown, tears streaming down my face.
What the hell? Right?
"Pull it together, Sydney!" I say to myself. "This isn't about your mortality. It's simply about getting what's rightfully yours!"
And then I'm suddenly reminded that when you think you're at the end of something, it usually means you're at the beginning of something else.
So, my new beginning, temporary 'though it will be, is having a duel income. How cool is that?
Montana, Wyoming, and Utah, here we come!
I plan to continue to work full-time for a couple of years.
Afterall, I still have what it takes to be really good at whatever I do.
I still have it in me to be viable.
I still enjoy working.
So why not?
And you're never too old to set a new goal or to live a new dream.
Besides, how many times can you clean out your closet?
When I do finally retire, I'm going to get up early in the morning and drive around really slowly so I can make everyone late for work, and I'm going to do my grocery shopping at 5:15, so I can drive crazy all the worker bees who stop in for a few things before heading home.
Just kidding.
Socialism is a scareword they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
HARRY S. TRUMAN, speech, October 10, 1952
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, November 8, 1954
