Not ready for this

Posted 10/19/22

MY View BY JOHN McLOONE I’m thinking over a really big decision right now. I’m at the age where that happens. My kids are all gainfully employed. I’ve been working – too hard, I believe – …

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Not ready for this

Posted

MY View

BY JOHN McLOONE

I’m thinking over a really big decision right now.

I’m at the age where that happens. My kids are all gainfully employed. I’ve been working – too hard, I believe – for almost 40 years.

The future for all of us seems to be a little murky right now. We’re battling inflation. Gas prices are through the roof again. A few weeks before the election, every trip to the mailbox can raise the stress level through the roof.

A lot of people aren’t satisfied with how things are going. A lot of other people weren’t satisfied with the way things were going, so they tried to make some changes.

Those things aren’t really going to factor into the decision I must make sooner rather than later. I realized it at about 4 a.m. today. It’s the kind of decision that – for the last couple days – has kept me up at night and made it difficult to get going in the morning.

I’m at a crossroads. Is it time for a change?

Here’s the dilemma I’m facing: I honestly don’t think I’m ready for winter, and it’s taken a mental toll on me the last few days. This recent cold snap is merely a harbinger of frigid months to come. The nights are long. Our world is encased in ice.

There’s only one way out, and it’s to flee. In my heart, I know the decision has been made – for the next several years at least. I have to fight on, but this early plunge below the freezing mark really has me rethinking things. Sure, I knew it was coming, but factors beyond my control have made my current situation even worse. Last year, about this time, early winter greeted my household with the gift of our elderly boiler which dutifully offered respite from the cold for, apparently, one year too many. We spent a week in early November heating this cold house with space heaters scattered about so as not to tax our personal electrical grid. If we were lucky, we could keep the place at 60 degrees.

The last couple weeks, as the nights have grown colder, the new model has broken down three times already. We’re awaiting a part that was supposed to have been shipped but has yet to arrive. So here we are again. Mid-afternoon yesterday, the outside temperature and the inside temperature were dangerously similar. My hopes of heat were dashed when the critical component to warming up my life wasn’t on a UPS truck.

Now, as you probably all have gathered by now, I’m no mountain man. I’m of the opinion that it’s either summer or winter. In my mind, I’m already trapped in a snow globe for the next eight months or so. There will be warm days ahead, I pray. Perhaps if it gets into the mid 50s, I can open the windows up and warm my house that way.

Wait until you see me in December!