I can be a bonafide Villager.

All I have to do is give up the last tie to the past…my old driver’s license.

When I moved to Florida, there was a law allowing licensing in 2 states…I guess it had to do with snowbirds who maintained 2 residences.   But now the law requires that you give up your previous license and “become a citizen” of Florida.

The Villages rules say that it is mandatory that your Florida license show The Villages address where you reside in order to get a Villages ID.

Period.

It doesn’t matter that your car insurance has the address.  Or that your voter’s registration has the address.  Or that you receive flowers delivered to you at the address.  Or that your name and phone number is listed on the work order for the broken clothes dryer. Or that you are awakened every Wednesday morning, two or three times each Wednesday morning, by The Villages landscaping crew  as they mow, weed wack and blow the clippings away outside your bedroom window.  If your license doesn’t show the address, don’t come knocking.

So, it’s decision time.

Now that I know that I’ve got nothing left to lose, and that “they can’t take that away”…

and now that I realize that the “higher paying job” isn’t really a GOOD thing…

what’s stopping me from letting go of the past?

From letting go of the ability to move back to where I wasn’t wanted in the first place???

Very soon I may just give up the golden handcuffs, disguised as a driver license, for the RIGHT to go to line dance classes, to swim in the Recreation Center pools, and to WALK INTO KATIE BELLE’S WITHOUT A VILLAGE RESIDENT AT MY SIDE!!!!!

The song says you’ve got to give a little, to get a little.

I WANT TO BE A VILLAGER AGAIN.

Maybe it’s time.

There is a job posting for a year long position in Irving, Tx.   I’m more than qualified.

The pay offered last month was $25/hr plus benefits.   The same job showed up in my inbox again today, this time, the pay is $29/hr.

Employers have not been knocking down my door, even with my college of engineering, 3.67 GPA, degree…heck, I haven’t even been able to land $7.25 unskilled labor positions these past 3-4 years.

I’ve carved out a nice life, a lot less opulent than the corporate years provided, but not bad.  I’m not making anything close to the hourly rate of October 1, 2005…but I’m surviving.

So when I received the $29/hr email for a job I could easily perform…I wondered “WHY?”.   Why is this carrot being dangled in front of me?  I could apply, maybe even get an interview, but most likely, probably not, not with my current credit situation.  The once overly responsible personification has been replaced with a mockery, there is no inkling of the once stellar credit history…now I’ve become one of the masses.

Besides…an increase of income would simply mean that I’d be trading a meager existence, with some semblance of peace, for the rat race existence.   More stress, packing up and moving yet again, for a job that is stated to last 1 year.   My work experience has proven that WHEN I’m allowed to prove my value, I’m asked to stay on after the term has ended…but in not being given the chance to show what I can do…both the prospective employer and I lose.  Every time.

And now, well, now I have 2 families counting on me.   In my life today, there is someone who would have to make a major adjustment if I should just pick up and move to Texas.  Another who would miss me dearly.   Not to mention my family and friends.

A job, for which I am absolutely qualified, at less than one half the pay for the work I’m capable of producing…but more than double the amount of money per hour that I’m receiving today…no question.

I’d have a “good” job, with benefits, a chance to save for the future…EXCEPT THAT I OWE SO MUCH FOR THE PAST 5 YEARS, since “volunteering” to take early retirement, that the “increase” in salary wouldn’t be mine at all…it would belong to the creditors.   The hole I’ve dug is so deep that bankruptcy is, truly, the only salvation.   And, as mentioned in the previous Freedom posting…there’s nothing left to lose.

Leaving The Villages, where I can take a walk at the end of the work day, dance outside under the stars…listening to a live band, or even to a DJ… Where I can run my errands in a golf cart and pretend I’m Fred Flinstone or Barney Rubble…why give up this less frantic life, with my judgment proof belongings, to re-enter the work force and carry a pager every other weekend???

When I was standing on the OTHER side of poverty, it was easy to look down at those “underachievers” who preferred to live with less rather than “go for the gusto”…

Now, by design or by accident or by pure luck, I’m wearing those moccasins.

Spent the last two days working on filling out Chapter 7 Bankruptcy forms…

learned that my financial situation is what is called “judgment free”, or something like that.

Seems my current net worth, my worldly possessions, including my remaining retirement funds, are exempt…the state has determined that what little I have left is mine…there is not enough value left over for creditors, nothing to sell.

Which means, HALLELUJAH, I don’t even have to file bankruptcy.

There’s nothing left over for anyone to take.

Freedom’s just another word…

There’s power in them words…improper use of the English language,

I know,

but the fact is,

I also know how to spell…drum roll please,

R E L I E F

!

Someone just sent me that email showing the 2009 Muslim parade with a video link and pictures of prayers occurring on Madison Avenue.

Personally, I think that the POSSIBILITY exists, maybe God is using email to bring about Armageddon????

It could happen!!!  

Think about it…passionate people forward these inflammatory emails to other passionate people who forward to more equally passionate people and then…SURPRISE!  Some deranged person starts shooting down people who are the subject of the inflammatory emails.

And then, the domino effect…just like what happens in the LA gang wars…RETRIBUTION is the name of the game.

The next Muslim parade will happen late in September.

IMHO, perhaps prayers should be lifted to PROTECT the innocent, ALL the innocents…

But then again, if the Bible is to be believed, why not expedite  Armageddon…

Fear Mongers of America –> KEEP FORWARDING INFLAMMATORY EMAILS.

Bring it on!

SIGH.

Oh…I forgot…we, the American public, aren’t changing the face of America, Obama is.

Right.

What is it the Bible says?

Love thy neighbor as thyself.

Turn the other cheek.

I’m remembering something about not spreading gossip (could inflammatory emails be considered gossip?)

And, isn’t there something in there, somewhere, about fighting God’s battles?

Oh, and that really obscure reference about throwing stones and glass houses.   Or, maybe just the part about “he who is without guilt” throwing the first stone.

The world is a strange place.  Blogging gives people like me the ability to stand atop a soap box and rattle on about this and that.   I certainly have no right to judge those who cry out that “Obama is changing the face of America.”   Nor do I have the right to forward  a Snopes link explaining the “truth” about ______ {fill in the blank} to people who send me passionate emails asking Americans to “do something” to stop ________ {fill in the blank}.

12/12/2012 - maybe a welcomed change?

I have access to a golf cart again…if you’ve never had the pleasure of driving here and there in a golf cart, you just can’t appreciate the UTTER JOY I experience driving one.   I can almost feel my feet imitating Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone as I putter along…the freedom is akin to the rush I had as a passenger on the back of a motorcycle…  I know, I know.  How can you compare driving a golf cart to the PURE JOY of riding (or driving) a motorcycle?   Maybe I’m a strange bird, been called that at least once in my life anyway…I just have to say that I LOVE driving a golf cart.   So…which is preferable?

Actually that title has NOTHING to do with golf carts or motorcycles.   It has to do with something that happened as I made my way to Sumter Landing today.  Saw two fully grown alligators lazily drifting in the big lake on my way there…but which is preferable has nothing to do with alligators either.

I passed by a low hanging palm frond…the top of the golf cart WHACKING the poor tree limb as I went by.  I actually whispered, “sorry” as I assaulted the tree…and I wondered…is it kinder to trim the limb or is  it kinder to keep whacking it as the golf carts pass by every day?

When you are in a bad relationship, each slap (verbal, physical, whatever) is painful…why stay in a position to experience the repeated agony?  Make the break…suffer the ending, and move on.   Right?

The palm tree has no recourse, it just has to weather the storm, so to speak, until someone is kind enough to prune the battered limb, thereby stopping the assault.

As I drove away, I wondered which would hurt more…the final cut, or the continued battering.