Rebecca Ashby

Baby Boomer Dream



Posted: Monday, February 04, 2008

by
http://www.rmashby.com

I had such grandiose ideas in my youth of my retirement years. I thought I would travel the globe, soaking in all the diversity of cultures in foreign lands. I saw myself as another Jack Kerouwac, writing as I sat sipping an espresso and listening to jazz in some quaint caf in Paris, then on to examine the rolling hills of Ireland seeking to recapture my Irish heritage. India's Taj Mahal would be next on my list, then on to tango in Argentina where I would dance until dawn with my Latin lover/dance partner but alas, my dreams are, for now, unattainable.

Truth is, financially, this travel agenda is impossible. What happened to my generation of people, the baby boomers? Were we so free in the 60's that we forgot to account for the future? Did we think that life would be a magic carpet ride? Did we just assume that our retirement would look like that of our parents? From the age of six, my Mother told me that I could grow up and be a teacher just like she was and that I would live happily ever after! That was a fairy tale. Teachers are underpaid, overworked and unappreciated in today's society.

I lived my life as a game of chance but only in moderation. Perhaps, if I had been willing to stretch past my limits and gone full out, I could have amassed a large quantity of money. Who knows? I've always put all my eggs financially in one basket, real estate, the home where I reside. I miscalculated the amount of funds that would be needed for living expenses in today's world. Coincidentally, I would have needed a crystal ball to tell me that my mortgage, my taxes and my home owners insurance would cost the exorbitant amount that they do today. Clearly, I did not expect to be scuffling for grocery money in my senior years but here I am and I suspect that I'm not the only baby boomer who is in this situation.

I n retrospect, could we baby boomers have imagined in our youth the technological advances that we have today? Could we have fathomed communicating on a world wide web, emails replacing letters, paying bills online, unlimited long distance calling included in our monthly bill, mobile and cordless phones, LP's as collector's items, digital photography or cars with voice activated GPS systems as a standard feature?

The rich are getting richer; the middle class are disappearing and one out of every four veterans is homeless. We need to take back our country! It's not unpatriotic to disagree with the present administration. In fact, it's our right and even our duty to have the politicians represent the people's interests. We are in stop time, circling in limbo, waiting for some action from our leaders so that we will have a chance to regain our rightful place financially in the hierarchy, as a middle class, not rich or poor but comfortably stable.

The housing market, with its dramatic downturn, has made us all slaves to our homes. The situation is a Catch22. If you sell, you take a loss and so we all wait and wait and hope that someday in the near future the tide will turn and we can take our most valuable asset, our home, and sell it for a profit thus fulfilling our dreams, what ever they may be!.

Rebecca Ashby has spent the last thirty years teaching English and Communication Arts.  She is now retired from the teaching profession and is working on her memoirs.  You can see her other articles at

www.rmashby.com   www.harvray.com 

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