We lost our jobs. We struggled from month to month on our skimpy Social Security checks. We battled depression, frustration, and feelings of hopelessness. We beat cancer and survived the seemingly worst years of our lives together.
It wasn’t until my husband started receiving disability benefits from the VA that we were finally able to come up for air and break free from the financial monster we faced every waking moment of every single day for three long, stressful years.
We planned many things before reaching retirement, those golden years we looked forward to spending debt free in splendid bliss traveling and cruising and collecting seashells on a sunny beach.
But owing a mortgage wasn’t one of them. Nor did we plan on the tiny trees we planted to get so big and messy and their shallow roots cracking the driveway.
In a dream world, our hard-earned golden years would be having a bottomless money pit and hiring professionals to renovate the house and manicure the lawn.
But those are someone else’s golden-years, certainly not ours.
So, here we are, a pair of dried up bones, our house falling apart, feeling too hopeless and frustrated to do anything about it.
Still, more than the dead trees in the yard, weeds in the flower beds, and saplings growing in the gutters, we wanted that dirty, stinking, pee-stained carpet gone!
So, with a glimmer of hope, we convinced ourselves that we’re only half as old as we look, and if we want that carpet gone, we’re gonna have to get off the pot and make it happen.
So, we watched a few how-to videos, high-fived each other, and with the adrenaline of a pair of goofy teens drunk on energy drinks, we decided to renovate the house.
Easy breezy, like sipping lemonade on a warm summer day by the pool.
NOT!
It’s been more like crawling a thousand miles across a hot desert naked.
On May 27, 2019, we began moving furniture and pulling up carpet, staples, nails, and carpet strips.
Two days later while we were out, a woman ran the red light and plowed into us causing over two thousand dollars in car damages and six weeks in the body shop for repairs. Thankfully, no one was hurt. It did, however, throw us off track for a few weeks dealing with insurance agents, numerous phone calls, and the rental car breaking down.
We have never laid flooring before and will never ever in a trillion years do it again. I’d rather kill a grizzly bear with my bear hands!
Being a perfectionist, having my house torn asunder with nothing in its place for weeks and weeks on end, the dogs acting stupid, and hubby working an hour and resting four nearly sent me over the edge.
And as if it couldn’t get any worse, we ran into water damage and huge pee stained circles . . . lots and lots of circles like stepping stones zigzagging across the sub floor. Replacing one of those boards became a crumbled mess of sawdust like a box of Nilla Wafers smashed to smithereens with a sledgehammer.
Several grueling hours later we finally cleaned up the mess and nailed down a new sheet of ply board only to discover it was too thick.
By now, we’re threatening to black each others eyes and I’m thinking of sticking a for sale sign in the yard and moving to another planet where I’m sure the golden years must be hiding.
Then, to my husband’s dismay, I do the unthinkable. I stopped everything in midstream to refinish my grandmother’s cedar chest. I got tired of moving furniture, straining my back, and crawling on my hands and knees snapping vinyl planks together. I needed a change, a creative boost. I wanted to see instant results.
Besides, it’ll only take a few days.
Ha!
That little project took three long weeks stripping paint and sanding and re-sanding and sanding again before it was ready to be stained. Then we did the blanket chest. Then I painted hubby’s computer desk. TWICE! I didn’t like the first color choice; it didn’t go with the furniture.
We knew the task wouldn’t be easy, but we didn’t know it would be like wrestling a thousand pound bull to the ground. And we had no experience or help from anyone other than Almighty God.
And here we are, at the end of August, celebrating our seventy-third birthdays together still pulling up carpet, counting the weeks when we’ll finally get finished and wondering when the golden years will suddenly appear.
Yet, through it all, God is teaching me more about Him and reminding me that life spent in His love and care and protection are the golden years. We don’t have to wait till a certain age to lounge in His comforting arms, travel the heights of joyful bliss, and sip the nectar of His eternal love, peace and comfort.
Life is never gonna be what we expected it would be and many never live to get a mere glimpse of the golden years and those who do often feel cheated and disappointed.
So, I’ve decide to forget about looking for the Golden Years and live in the joy and happiness of every moment of every day of every year till I disappear into the sunset.
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