Why Am I Working?

After five days off, I'm wondering why I am still working at the ripe old age of 63 1/2.  Then I look at my desktop wallpaper and see Bray Bray holding a microphone and smiling.  I think, "There's one reason!" 
Yup!  I want to have a little moolah left over to help the babies of the family.  Although Braylon, at 4 1/2, is hardly a baby anymore, he will always be a baby to his Granny Suzi, and he was the cuddliest baby thus far, even more of a cuddle-bunny than his daddy Elijah was a quarter century ago.

Okay, so I am working for Braylon's sake, and for that of the other nine great-grandbabies Bobby and I have been blessed with.  But what are the other reasons?

Another reason I work is so that I can tithe.  I think that spreading the good news of Jesus Christ is about the best thing I can do right now.  Over the years if I had given God more of the money he'd given me, I'm certain that I would be living like a millionaire right now.

The main reason I tell people why I'm working is to pay money into Teacher Retirement.  Yet, in the back of my mind, I wonder just how much money will be left over for me whenever I do decide to tap into it.  At the end of every day off, I find myself wondering if I should just throw in the towel immediately and go on to the house. The fact remains that if I retire now, I'll have very little money, miserable sub-subsistence pay.

Then, too, I work because it gives me something to do besides just feeding and diapering an invalid.  Bobby can no longer walk or talk, but that ten-word vocabulary he still has includes the worst curse words I know.  For over a year now, he's been out of the hospitals and nursing homes, living with me, and cursing me daily.  It gets old, being cursed.  And the fact that he probably only has half a brain left after his stroke sometimes is not enough to make me feel lovingly forgiving.  The cancer he has to make matters worse is highly unpredictable.  Even having kidney cancer, Bobby may outlive me, so working, even though it makes my life difficult, still takes some of the boredom and drudgery out of my living.

There are still more reasons why I work:  I want to finance the start-up and early workings of my online teaching business; I want to build myself a tiny retirement cabin; I want to buy land in Oklahoma and Colorado; I want to pay off my car; I want to live and work in West Texas and/or Austin; I want to travel, back to Europe and on to Machu Picchu and other parts of Latin America.  I want; I want; I want.   And my "I wants" take money.

Therefore, I continue to work.  Right now I am commuting 140 miles every weekday.  When I get home, I have to clean and change my husband, as I also do before I leave in the dark of the morning. I don't sleep enough. My daily routine is grueling, especially for a middle-aged, overweight woman.  Yet, I trudge on.

Why? Because I want to.  I guess....