Tag: self care

Pondering Preppers

A few years ago, before the pandemic, I started watching Prepper type YouTube videos. I was looking for ideas on how to preserve food, make natural cleaners and self-sufficiency in general. What I tumbled upon was a buzzing community of people who were very busy preparing for when ‘shit hits the fan’. It took me down the rabbit hole of food storage, water storage, and how you can protect yourself and your family, living out of urban settings in the woods, keeping a bug-out bag with you at all times and always be a grey-man when you are moving in the masses, so people never look to you as a threat, or a leader.

This kept my mind busy for a few months, as I pondered how we could weather a disaster, and I had to accept that it simply could not work, for us. Having a seven foot picture window and a working fireplace, we would be prime targets, I gave up on ever being a prepper, although I still ponder moving away from the city.

The world is changing. I can see that communal living, generational living, is something that could become commonplace again, even as I yearn to move to my fictional forest. We’re not there quite yet.

We visited our friends in Muskoka over the weekend. They have a nearly off-grid home and 80 acres of forest. It’s a gorgeous property, on a dead-end road with very few neighbours. Geoff was saying they are thinking of getting a working gun, for protection. He says that the neighbours all have guns and that they could guard the road in the event of disaster. [We, of course would be homeless by then, evicted for our fireplace – best scenario]. I stared at Geoff, who grew up in inner city Toronto like myself, and was struck by how afraid we have all become.

Having already imagined how a disaster would play out for us, I imagine the great city exodus north to these isolated communities. To these 80 acre lots. I almost prefer to go out in the beginning rather than the bitter end.

In all the beauty surrounding us this weekend, our friends are now thinking about how to protect that vastness.

Mid life invisibility or I feel ill.

Last September I found myself rather suddenly unemployed. After months of planning, my spouse [who I worked with] had found a new position, at a competitor, and I was promptly dismissed. Not so surprising, although ex-employer behaved poorly, and has been a bit of a prick, with threats of lawsuits and trying to lure husband into reacting, which he has not done.

This post is not about that situation, which we are still basking in the afterglow of freedom from this miserable narcissist, but about being mid life and breaking into a new type of work. After years in administration, I went for a barista position at a popular coffee establishment, and my first ever time working in the food industry.

I am the oldest there by at least 10 years, and find myself this winter, realizing how invisible I am as a middle aged person. I have always felt youthful, and am physically strong and quite fit. I do notice that I don’t multitask at the speed of sound like the younger ones in their 20s, but I don’t think I would ever have moved that quickly.

What I notice is the absence of curiosity towards me. When you meet new people, and find out what they are taking in school, or what they did on the weekend, or talk about partners or children, they are not as interested in finding out about me. Maybe I come across as too private? Not sure.

The last months of winter have worn me down, worry about daughter’s pregnancy, husband having hand surgery, my own annual cancer check in March, plus I have just come down with my third cold since February, after around 3 years not being ill. I am miserable, my house is covered in cat hair and dust, my 16 year old cat is hyper thyroid and beyond annoying. The two adult children living here are not seeing me either, and I wonder if it is something new, or did I create this cocoon eons ago?

Now that spring is here, I have a new manager at work. She is in her 40s, and the ceaseless chatter on the work WhatsApp has quieted to a degree. I have 5 shifts in a row, am I annoyed? Only because I am low energy. The trails are open, and we are eager to get back to our weekend hikes. There is good happening, I just feel worn down, and a little washed out.