“My Secret Stash”

            Occasionally, I purchase a special sweet treat to help me withstand various life trials. Last year, one mini-Milky Way sat on my desk in plain sight. Any tribulation that entered my day had to reach a “Sponge Worthy” status before I’d eat this small indulgence. I became Seinfeld’s Elaine, measuring my distress just like she did to before using her favorite birth control. My ultimate goal is to reshape the day’s strain into a manageable tidbit that saved my candy for an even worst calamity.

            My mini-treat, left uneaten, morphed over time into my way of celebrating my resilience. When our old hot water heater died an untimely death, I tacked onto a credit card unexpected debt. Problem solved enough to save the candy for another day. Massive layoffs at my husband’s company should’ve made me devour the bar plus every sugar laden item in our house. Instead, I maintained that the piece stay in place to celebrate not being unemployed. Illnesses and injuries plagued family and friends, but nothing ever comparable to Mom’s Huntington’s disease battle. The measure I used before consuming my Milky Way mini grew with each day I walked away from wolfing it down.

            At year’s end, I indulged myself with the treat.

            Starting this year, I have Milk Duds sitting on my desk. The little yellow box calls attention to itself in a way my demure Milky Way mini never did. Expecting a more turbulent year, I snuck a LifeSavers hard candy storybook in the bin below my desk and hid some Andes’ in the freezer. Yesterday’s news with withdrawing from WHO, trying to destabilize the Fourteenth Amendment, and pardoning those who brutally attacked police officers with the insurrection left me battered enough to raid one roll of my Lifesavers.

            My personal goal to have the Milk Duds sit uneaten on my desk by year’s end may be unreachable, but I’ll give it my best try.  

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

              

“Storms Ahead”

            Some months, I worry that I may need to return to substitute teaching to allow us to build a vacation fund or bank away enough money to remodel the bathrooms and update the kitchen. Then I remember how illness traveled with me as I went from classroom to classroom, school to school. Frankly, as I get older I don’t know if my body can take the pummeling various viruses battered through me. Would the extra money be worth exposing my health to illnesses that settle in my chest for weeks at a time?

            Frankly, a trip to the beach or mountains, to another city or another country doesn’t entice me to return to work. Although the house needs sprucing up here-and-there, everything works. No reason to gut a room if it also means picking up a bug that also guts me!

            My determination to remain fully retired took a punch last week when my husband’s company announced another round of layoffs happening soon. Our goal has been for him work until he’s 70 to pull in the highest Social Security benefit possible. If he ends up unemployed at 67, will his retirement income be enough?

            We frantically crunched all of the numbers, remembering that we’d have to pick up all of his medical insurance, and realized one or both of us would still need to work at least part-time, or begin tapping into our retirement funds earlier than we predicted.

            How can this be?

            Over the next few weeks, we’ll see how the dust settles. With luck, his position will remain untouched during this round of cuts. He’ll get to his goal of three more years with this company, and I won’t get thrown back to work.

            For now, we’re on alert for possible storms ahead.

 Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

           

               

 

"The Footlong Generation"

 Our children live at home— 
dreaming, planning, reaching, and working
within a reality of Pink Slips and Red Ink 

meeting Maslow’s levels by 
staying, sharing, settling, and waiting 
Our children leave our homes— 
dreaming, planning, reaching, and working
 
but return with Divorce and Failure 
postponing their destinies by 
bleeding, retreating, suffering, then healing
 
Our parents live at home— 
yearning, coping, striving, craving 
becoming our children by 
needing, depending, trusting, and relenting
 
Our parents live in homes—
yearning, coping, striving, craving 
relinquishing their destinies by 
falling, breaking, suffering, dying 

Copyright 2010 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"In Reserve"

         I retied in 2010 because I needed to take care of my mother as Huntington’s Disease ate away her brain and robbed her of everything. For two years, she became the 24/7 focus of our entire family. After she died, I returned to work part-time. Originally, I thought I’d work only a couple of days each week.

         To be honest, I appreciate having a job. I love working with children in the classroom, visiting different campuses throughout the month, and building my reputation with various faculties. I like having a long list of positions to select from as I fill my calendar each week; and my part-time job turned into working almost full-time during the last two school years. Having employment keeps me out of trouble!

         I realized the other day just how fortunate we are that I can add income to our monthly budget. Right now, my pay helps cover bills that didn’t exist when I retired seven years ago, like a car payment. It goes toward the utilities, insurance, and taxes that continue to climb year-by-year. Aren’t we lucky that I have the ability to take on another job?

         My husband’s company laid-off sixty people a few weeks ago. Their projected budget for the next eighteen months means he’s safe for now, but we have an unexpected threat looming that didn’t exist in March. We’ve already run down the “what if” path and know we’ll survive because I can always go back into the workforce full-time in a job that pays more than my $80.00 per day substituting gig.

         I know that many families don’t have a second income earner “in reserve” who can swoop in to rescue the day when there’s a lay-off. I worry about the single parent struggling across two minimum wage jobs. I fret about the working poor—who already pull forty-hour work weeks and cannot survive because they don’t receive a living wage. I agonize over my retired teacher friend whose pension won’t cover the rising medical insurance payment. It burdens me to know that many people don’t have savings, investments, or family to fallback on—not just in an emergency, but to make it through each and every day.

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman