To all those alone tonight on Christmas Eve.....

[magical thyme]

182. as far as I can determine, the pushback never ends...

After I busted my brain for 3 years, and took on tens of thousands in student loans to get retrained in med lab tech, within 3 months of starting my new job a brain-damaged, alcoholic divorced janitor set his sights on me. I was pushing 60 at the time.

3 of my co-workers encouraged him and tried to solicit personal information from me on his behalf, 2 of them older than I am who should have known better. The 1st actually had the frackin' ovaries to tell him I was going to have coffee with him -- this after I told her I had just lost the love of my life to early onset alzheimers and wanted to be left alone.

I ended up forced to file a sexual harassment complaint against my co-workers just 3 months into the attempt at a new career. It wasn't taken seriously, and he literally stalked me around the hospital for 9 months before finally being fired. Totally destroyed my fresh start.

This was just 10 years after losing my career, mostly to the high tech crash followed by 9/11, but also due to being harassed 24x7 by a junenile, toothless registered sex offender who moved into an adjacent condo, along with his gang of thugs in Massachusetts. After 3 years of nonstop harassment, the police told me I needed to get out of town because they couldn't protect me, so I packed up and left the state.

I can only imagine what pusing 70 will bring. I'm happy being a single woman, but let me tell you it is not easy. For every person who treats me with simple, common decency and respect, there are a half dozen who assume I am an easy mark, or desperate, or what-the-fuck-ever goes on in their pea brains.