A year ago, I knew only one person made jobless by the plunging economy. Now, it's a circle of people, myself among them.
Most of them are single mothers. These women, some independent by choice and others by circumstance, cope in a variety of ways, none of them ideal.
My ex-sister-in-law also has been unemployed for several months. "Thank God for my 401k," she said. It's a statement we should be making at 65, not in our mid-40s.
My friend Sara, laid off months ago, recently applied for foods stamp. She did so after weeks of debate, pride delaying the painful decision. Her application was rejected. She makes too much money, they said, pointing to her dwindling unemployment and $300-a-month in child support.
A friend who is a real estate broker in the mountains owns several properties, most of which have been for sale for more than a year. She is house rich and cash poor, paying many of her bills with credit cards. She's been coping this way for what is going on years.
Almost 15 years ago, this same friend floated an idea to a few of us. In our old age, she said, we'd all live together. "I'll buy an island," she said. "And we'll all live there. We'll have a cabana boy who'll bring us drinks with neon-colored umbrellas."
At the time, I scarcely listened. I was in my early 30s, newly divorced and dating for the first time in years. I reveled in freedom, feeling like I had in those first, heady years just after college. Senior citizenship and retirement were the last things on my mind. I was irked that she even had brought it up.
She's mentioned it from time to time since then. The island isn't part of the plot anymore. Now it's her house in Dillon, which overlooks the lake.
"You can all come live with me," she says. "We'll be just like the Golden Girls."
"I get to be Dorothy," I pipe each time the subject is broached.
And each time, she fixes me with a glare. "No, I get to be Dorothy. It's my idea. I get first pick. You're Blanche."
I think about her proposal more seriously now, not only because I'm older but because of what I see all around me: Middle-aged professionals, jobless, panicked and tapping into their retirement funds for survival. What will be left for them - for us - when we reach those golden years?
In three years of working in the Medicare field, I saw countless lonely seniors. Most of them were women because, unfortunately, we still out live the guys. They lived alone in small apartments, for the most part behind doors that rarely opened.
Isolation and its loyal companion depression run rampant among the elderly, taking a heavy toll on physical health. Research shows depression doubles a senior's risk of cardiac disease, increases the risk of death from illness, and reduces the potential for rehabilitation.
This withered economy may force long-overdue changes among the senior population by compelling future generations to share their homes.To become updated versions of the Golden Girls.
What starts as a necessity may become a lifestyle choice, as it makes us see how very much we need one another. Never more so than as we age. It's a potentially positive societal change sprouting from our current bleak economy.
In the case of my friends and I, I'm not so sure about the Dillon house. I left the mountains for many reasons, most of them weather-related. I'd like to leave the island on the table. But that's a detail we could negotiate.
Locale aside, I can envision us on the deck of a house with a great view, drinking those neon-umbrellaed cocktails, watching the sunset. Perhaps we'll even have rounded up a couple of senior men who we'll cheerily share. They'll do double duty as our cabana boys.
And while we sip our drinks we'll reminisce.
"Remember girls, back in 2009, when the economy was so bad? When we all lost our jobs? Remember how we thought we were doomed to end our lives poor and alone?"
This will be followed by much laughter and clinking of glasses. A call for another round.
Reality may not be quite so rosy. Subservient men are not so easy to find, after all, and the odds surely won't improve as their numbers diminish.
No matter the specifics, staying together - pooling funds, our support, our camaraderie - sounds a far better way to live than apart and lonely. Regardless of whether I'm Dorothy or Blanche.