Moving, Part II

Never thought I was much of a consumer, but packing has disabused me of this notion: so much stuff, and so little space to put it in.  Ten years is a long time to accumulate stuff, and I’m no different than anyone else in this regard.  It’s depressing and bittersweet, going through the memories of ten years, knowing that I’m leaving behind a lot of beloved people and things.  I wonder if I will ever manage to come back here, even when my parents pass. It might still be unaffordable. I may still not have a job.  But for the grace of others, we would be homeless. That’s…scary as hell, and pretty common right now. I’m trying not to think about that too much, but it pops in, unbidden.

It’s hard to prepare myself to say goodbye to Marlon. Seems like yesterday when we got him from the APL,  and it was in 2000.  He had a little trouble adjusting at first, and we thought he was deathly ill from his symptoms. Turns out it was nothing, and I often thought it might have been his nervous system, trying to figure out and deliver what these new humans expected of him.

I hope he is well taken care of in his new home, and have every reason to believe he will be.  No matter what, it’s better than the alternative.  My views on everything are radically shifting as the earth shifts beneath our feet: this country of prosperity and consumerism is no more.  I will never again feel a sense of safety, of not knowing what it feels like when the rug is pulled out from under your feet.  I will never again be carefree, or think of money as “only money.”  Not that the opposite will hold: a grasping, greedy capitalist I will never become.  But somewhere between that and the naive, carefree, optimistic me of the past is likely where I’ll eventually land.

If you want to really start worrying, read www.dailyreckoning.com.  Sift through its archives — the worst of our economic woes is yet to arrive, and it’s going to be very ugly.  That, coupled with the promise of peak oil, promises to forever change life as we have always known it.

Welcome to the Brave New World,  brought to you by Republicans, for the wealthy and built on the backs of the broken middle class.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.