Peeling

Our stockbroker sends us emails about the COVID-19. He tells us how to “mitigate emotional decision-making by viewing the crisis in phases.”

But, despite watching our investments curl up like so many dried fall leaves, the president tells us, “This is not a financial crisis.” It’s just a thing, he says, a passing thing. No worries.

So I contemplate now the two things every older person dreads: being sick and being penniless. I feel I am losing my verve, my “vigor and spirit or enthusiasm” and that the time of my pretending that age doesn’t matter is now over. It matters.

I find this paralyzing and depressing.

Yesterday I tried to remember the words to Patsy Cline’s song, Side by Side:

Oh! We ain’t got a barrel of money
Maybe we’re ragged and funny
But we’ll travel along
Singing a song
Side by side

I don’t know what’s comin’ tomorrow
Maybe it’s trouble and sorrow
But we’ll travel the road
Sharing our load
Side by side

It’s so sweet, isn’t it? All that tying up our belongings in a checkered kerchief and skipping down the road holding hands? What really happens in dire times is that people end up squabbling over the last banana, never mind 36 years of marriage.

Yes, of course, we would split it. It’s just hyperbole. Jesus.