Screw Fear.

Hey, we Boomers expected we'd get old with all our gold.

I spent this past summer worrying about how I was going to survive financially and it started reminding me of being a Jehovah's Witness, back when the elders were telling us the world was gonna end in 1975.

I had been hammered with that damned Armageddon thing since I was a little kid. We would be persecuted, we would be killed. Just like the death camps in WWII. Imagine teaching your kids about the death camps. Who does that??

I can remember being 6 years old and my mother sitting across from me at the kitchen table, telling me "one day you may be taken away from me, but you will have to be strong."

WTF. Strong? At 6? How?

As a young adult I would bow my head and mumble "but the Bible says no man knows the day nor the hour"; unfortunately, nobody hears you when you when you bow your head and mumble. And when you're female in that religion nobody would have heard you if you screamed, ripped off your bra and set your tits on fire.

The elders said the righteous (us) would be tortured and persecuted. And then God would sweep down from on high and smite all evildoers (anyone who wasn't us) and resurrect the righteous who had already died (only 144,000) and suck them right into heaven. Sort of a mini-rapture.

The rest of us would live forever on a paradise earth.

Even then, fresh and innocent, I can remember thinking "that sounds sort of boring. With THESE people? Foreverrrr?"

Fear gets really old after a while. You get numb. And then you get pissed off.

I bailed in 1974. And it felt GOOD. Screw fear, screw worrying about what's going to happen.

Guess what - the world didn't end in 1975. Just as I suspected.

So I spent all last summer terrified I couldn't make it financially one more month and you finally get to the point of fuggit, what's the worst that can happen? What poor friend or relative would YOU call if you lost your job and your house? Or which of your friends or relatives may wind up calling YOU when THEY lose THEIRS?

Which option is WORSE - and which has the potential for (gasp) good things? Like that sense of family and friendship, of pulling together that our spoiled brat generation lost a long damned time ago.

My daughter-in-law grew up in communist Poland. This is nothing compared to what she's been through.

So if you have to move, to room with someone, what will you take? What will you give away? What will you abandon?

When I hit the blackest of the black, lowest of the low an amazing thing happened. I looked around and asked myself what I could sell. What I should sell. I brought more furniture than I needed anyway.

Turns out I could get rid of a 7' tall antique oak sideboard, almost 4' wide. It was beautiful, but it ate my living area. I'd tried posting it to eBay before, got a hit, sold it and the buyer renigged. This is why I hate eBay. And this is why I hate being from Michigan, I'm too polite to post negative feedback. I might as well be Canadian.

(No offense Connie.)

I posted it to Craigslist instead and got a few lowball offers. Then the snowbirds started coming back. I used to hate to see the out of state plates, but now it's like the cavalry's comin. Feels good. Feels like cash.

I posted the sideboard to Craigslist and sold it within three hours. Got paid in hundred dollar bills. Not as much as I would have liked, but I basically broke even. I had a great gaping hole in the middle of my room, but wow. What a great feeling to let something go. And the space - there was something soothing about it.

Now nothing is safe. Well, the dogs and my late 70s German porn...

When I worry I organize my stuff and it just feels good. Those bags of clothes that are going to charity - they feel GREAT. The brown bags full of papers for recycling? EXCELLENT. I am thinning this shit out.

There's no crap in the fridge either - garbage in, garbage out. Literally. Every dollar counts, especially when you don't have health insurance.

And when I worry about where I could go, I think of it as an adventure my grandkids will tell their kids. Heck, I can aspire to become an unwelcome scourge in their lives - like the grandmother in Sixteen Candles.

I can give them the nervous tic they sometimes give me. Something to tell their therapists in years to come.

Maybe I will never have to go anywhere and then again, there is always a gray area. To be broke and alone and getting older in this economy doesn't necessarily mean you have to impose your sorry ass on someone else or that you may be asked to share YOUR home or condo - it may mean you will fall into something meaningful.

Because I've noticed a very weird change lately.

Last year at this time the guys on match were arrogant and condescending. Now they're kinder/gentler - a little bit humbled. Some are desperate and needy, looking for anyone solid and honest and not a golddigger.

Wood is less of a priority than gold and there's not enough of that to spend on bimps any more.

So it's getting pretty funny. I'm blowing off anyone with a Harley and taking more time with the boat photos; just for fun.

I am suddenly hearing from the men I loved most in the past, those bridges I never burned. "Are you seeing anyone?" It feels like musical chairs, where everyone realizes they're getting old and they don't want to be alone for the rest of this rocky ride.

So it could be good. None of us know where we'll be this time next year. One thing we know for sure - it's going to be interesting.