Sailing Off into Disaster

About a week ago I read an article on AOL that stated that the average 50 year old women's greatest fear  is being broke in her old age.  I never imaged that I would find myself fitting into main street American in such a way.  As a young woman, I always thought that I would marry my childhood sweetheart and stay that way for life. I did in fact marry him, but he's been married to his second wife now for 25 years so I kinda' let that dream go. So here I am almost 60 and I realize that I will grow old alone and that I will be part of that growing number of women who do it broke.  I can look back at the choices I made and the mistakes and kick myself into the next decade or I can do what my father taught me to do, work.  My father believed first in hard work, and second, in hard work.  He wasn't one to sit around and talk, instead he was a man of action and always had a project going.  I swear I think he poured concrete on every inch of land he ever owned.  He's still the only person I know who had one of those little personal size concrete mixers.  Every time he sat down, he jumped up and did something.  I've tried to remember if it was because my mother told him to, or if he just did it on his own.  Either way, every time we went to the lake as a child, something got covered in concrete. My mother would sit in the swing in the shade and my father and his hired man, Tommy, would pour concrete.  Concrete patios, driveways, boat ramps, walkways.  For a man who admired nature and a pretty lawn, he sure covered up a lot of it with concrete.  I am a lot like him.  I work a lot and I work hard.  The only problem is, I don't make any money. So maybe work is not the solution for me any more than getting married to a man who I thought would take care of me was. Its too late to inherit my wealth. I doubt I will be adopted by someone rich; although a 40ish year old woman I knew in Fairhope did arrange such a thing.  But, she still had a really cute body.  My chances of marrying for it are pretty much as shot as my knees.  If I watch the news I know I don't just have to worry about whether I can live on my social security, I have to worry if I will every see it.  So what's a girl to do?  The article suggested that women should consider a "Golden Girls" solution. Move in with a group of like minded women friends.  Only problem,  most of my friends are married.  That, of course is prone to change in the next few years as the men find younger wives and/or die off.  With any luck all my friends will find that they are in the same boat as me and we will climb in it together and steer it to the nursing home. Isn't that a pretty picture.  Four or five, love starved old women clinging to each other and their social security checks sailing off into the sunset. I hope one of them can see well enough to steer and I sure hope that some of them are funny.