So as we all know I've been struggling with feeling like the last 20 years have been a colossal miss. I don't know if I spent too much time being sad; playing the comparison game; lamenting; trying to reclaim the life I thought I should have had. I don't know. But I just get the feeling I could have handled it better.
Let's recall what exactly happened. I graduated from a high school I didn't particularly enjoy with an experience that wasn't exactly what I thought it would be like either. It was nothing like the movies. I thought college would be my ticket out of Disappointmentville. I started at Dream School and had to quit because...immigration.
That seems to be where I get stuck so this morning I looked back and tried to figure out what Dream School meant to me because to me that's just where it all went wrong.
So I wrote down what Dream School was:
Dream school = dream life = dream friends = dream life = dream life = dream life = happiness.
I don't really know.
I think Good school meant good friends = good job = good life outcome = good husband = good house... but I think these are things that I now assign to "good." I don't know what 17 year-old me thought was going to happen when I went to Dream School.
But once I had to leave, it was like I could never be happy again. I just knew without that Dream Degree and Dream Experience, life wasn't worth living?
But that was the most salient turning point for me. It was supposed to be an out; a reward for my hardwork; reparation; it was just the panacea for all things bad that I felt happened to me.
So I spent essentially the next 20 years trying to recreate that experience or the perceived feeling; when it wouldn't happen, I would resign myself to whatever reality I was living and convince myself life wasn't worth living.
I'm trying not to do that again in Death House.
But I think even continuing to call it Death House is another dig at the loss of Dream Life.
Life isn't worth living, so I'm going to die in this horrible house. I refuse to be happy or invest any emotional connection in this community or experience.
But I turned 38 and I think I have 20 more years to live. It can't be like the last 20 years of just replaying regret and disappointment over and over again and living in that narrative of this forgotten, second choice life. (But isn't that reality?)
If I actually try to assign measurable objectives to Dream School in hindsight, maybe this is what I hoped for:
- A good school meant a good education which meant a good job which was a conduit to meet my basic needs and pursue my desires (yet to be determined). A good school also meant good friends that might serve as a resource, or inspiration, or support down the road.
The thing is it didn't have to be that particular Dream School. What I didn't know at the time was any number of schools could have provided that outcome.
I was stuck in the fantasy of The One (not just with love, but life choices it seems).
When I was stuck in my latest boy-crazy-haze, I stumbled upon a video clip that looked mathematically at finding love and they sort of disproved the notion that there was Only One person you could love or that would have common interests and enough to sustain a long term romantic relationship. If you put all the things you're looking for into a formula and even filter for geographic location, there are hundreds of thousands of people that you would be compatible with. And in the theory that love is a choice, finding a romantic partner to do life with doesn't need to be this impossible task. But I digress.
I think for me people and their life choices are good for me to get ideas. I won't refute that. I don't know why we're so quick to dismiss comparison. It's what we all do. We use each other as measuring sticks. That's not going to change. Where I got stuck was feeling like I didn't measure up using someone else's life as a measuring stick. Or even my own ideas of what I thought "good" looked like based on that.
Let's not get too woo-woo.
I still had this picture of at least my single life...of living in a cool condo in a cool city and doing cool things if I wasn't going to be married with kids.
Condos were expensive and I couldn't afford it in my last neighborhood without feeling like I had to work more. By the time I was looking for a new place to live, FIRE was already a part of my life, and the numbers didn't make sense for what I was trying to achieve at the time.
I think in that Cool Condo Dream Life, I was trying to achieve the sense of Arrival. I made it. Look at me! Celebrate me! I did want to be active and social and do it in a way where I wasn't pinching pennies. So maybe that was residual from being young and broke and not really having my life figured out.
So maybe my making fun of cheap house is because I'm a bit embarrassed I can't afford anything nicer. Maybe it's all armor? I didn't even know that until right now.
Whatever. How do I make the best of MERJ 2.0.
It's not the pressure of a 'better' version, just a new version.
When I sussed out what I really wanted in my current life it's:
#1 Financial Stability
I've mostly achieved this at the Lean FIRE level, but I want to continue to maintain it. The RE part of FIRE surprisingly has shifted to the background for the time being. I have reached a level of financial stability that makes me finally feel like I can come out from under the dark cloud; not feel so afraid that everything will be snatched out from under me and I'll be homeless and poor and dependent on the whim of others.
So what does financial stability mean to me in this moment?
- No/minimal dependency on family, friends, or employer (not subject to the whim of others or having to compromise myself in a deadening way; feeling like I have no out; just that fear and anxiety that comes with relying on the whim of another human and having to toe that line; it's a a level of oppression that is frankly scary and not a place I ever want to be)
- Emotional and physical security (sure my money doesn't keep me warm at night in a romantic sense, but it keeps the lights and heats on; it gives me shelter; I never have to depend on the whim of another person to have a safe and comfortable place to live; I don't have to risk assault or violence just for safety; there is a sense of emotional stability that comes with achievable self-reliance; it's stressful having to work for money)
- Money to meet basic needs and pursue silly desires (for the most part this is basic needs like food and shelter, and silly things like eating out or traveling or getting my hair done)
#2 Community
What does this look like?
I had no real plans to build community here when I chose this house. I just came here to save money and get to 500k as quickly as possible and figure it out from there. So I still struggle with whether or not I can really build community here. I'm still turning up my nose like I did at community college because it wasn't Dream School. This "Death House" isn't my Dream Condo Life either. But can it be? What does community mean to me at this point in my journey.
This is what I'm looking for:
- Emotional support (consistent, reliable, local, prioritize me)
- People you can count on (no flaky friends, someone who will drop everything to help me, not just will but actually can because they don't have prior obligations that prevent this)
- Positive influence (this is just like when you're little; I want to surround myself with people who are doing things with their life; achieving goals I can relate to; make good choices; doing big things; building me up; leaving a legacy; I like being around people who are doing things I admire or aspire to; so people who can help me reach goals, pursue desires, and learn new things; not a threat to my financial stability)
I don't know if I should put a timeline on it with a plan of it doesn't happen say by Dec 2022, I need to bounce. That's a lot of pressure... or if this is more, see if it can work here. Can you achieve those outcomes where you are. People live here, so I feel like the answer must be yes. My initial thought is these people just aren't like me, so I doubt it. But that's why I wanted to enumerate what I thought community would look like. Because it won't be highly polished people living in a condo. It might be the guy with no teeth on my softball team.
The point is, some of the people I went to community college with after I left Dream School did go on to live lives very similar to mine but I wrote them off. I don't want to make that same mistake.
I guess I'm hoping I can find that community here. Like I said people live here, it's not a ghost town. I'm hoping I can find community here and this list essentially serves to help me identify it if I do find it.
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