The Seattle Plan (#090822)

 I just decided to move to Seattle for a year. If I like it, I'll stay longer.

Move might be a strong word. I'm going to live in Seattle for a year.

I've been having these weird dissociative like experiences with my life, my body, my mood. If anything, I just have to physically get away from this space. There are just so many bad memories and thoughts.

It's like a toxic relationship that you just have to get away from.

So a few minutes ago, I just decided.

I'm going to go live in Seattle for a year. 

Once you remove the hocus pocus, and the magic of signs, and predestination. The choice just boiled down to - do I want to do this thing? Yes. 

What I'm learning from my multiple therapists is ...acceptance? Yeah, this is actually all there is. Take it or leave it. 

I literally am sick of eating my feelings and distracting myself with the closest sugary or salty snack. I lost the muscle tone in my arm. I used to have really nice arms. 

In talking to white-man therapist, he uses compliments. I realized I forgot how much I liked accolades. They're nice. I noticed in A Purple Life's old posts, she used to write a list of accomplishments (as opposed to goals...well she did both I guess). But I reject gratitude logs and goals right now because that feels like things that happen to you.

Accomplishments resonate with me because those are things I do. It's probably just re-branding the same concept, but that's what I'm going with.

Anyway, looking to 2023, here's where I'm at.

Jan, Feb, Mar 2023: frontload/max out 401k (likely pretax); rest of year do 6% with rollover, and auto-convert to Roth (new feature at work!!!)

April, May, June 2023: 3 month lease on Bungalow to guarantee meeting new people; pick a place with age appropriate adults, preferably near some nice views; but definitely near some basic life supplies like food

July, August, Sept, October: do a short-term rental somewhere awesome; if Green Lake still makes sense, if not, I really liked the location I stayed at in Downtown; live somewhere cool and vibrant!

Nov- Dec +/- (Jan to Mar 2024): Continue living in Seattle; return to roommates for the "Big Dark" to avoid seasonal affective disorder; go to Hawaii for company winter shut down, or fly back to NC to change wardrobe and get hair done

(Jan to Mar 2024): By March 2024, you will have lived in Seattle for 1 year. You did it! This was my next inflection point to get my first long-term incentive award at work. Nothing huge like a CEO, but it should be a few extra thousand dollars. 

Checkpoint (short story): If you are happy, stay 1 more year. 

 Checkpoint (long story): If you have friends and found love, keep working and enjoying life. If you are happy(e.g. define as you wish but in 2022, it's friends, community, romantic partner), keep working; presumably having an enjoyable lifestyle to fund should keep you motivated enough to keep working. If you want to stay, stay. The dating apps helped me find a place from the comfort of my own home, that I could potentially date people, but I don't want that to be the focus. I would ideally want to try to live there without the apps but TBD. 

If you don't want to stay, come back to NC and figure out next steps. Next steps could include, retiring early at Lean FIRE. Could include keep working, and being a summer bird in different locations. Any combination of things or something else entirely. We know what the default is, so let's just re-aim our focus away from that for now.

Why this makes sense. 

Well, that March 2024 date was my low-key next inflection point.  But it doesn't mean anything, I give myself permission to do whatever I want whenever. If this job brings me down, I'll do my best to keep it but the point of the FIRE stash is I don't have to. Right now work makes sense because I don't have anything else to do. I sense it's not long term, and I wouldn't mind having something a little easier and mindless. I'm no longer prioritizing fulfillment at work, not that I ever did, but it's even less of a concern. 

I haven't thought too much about how funding will work in 2024, but I think we know now budgeting is something I can do well. I can accomplish that part of the puzzle easily.

It'll be interesting to celebrate and toot my own horn more! There's no brag police that's going to come down from the heavens and humble me. I mean really, can I get any lower. I'm just so tired of being afraid when I used to be fearless. 

So yeah, I'm not waiting for a $65k supplement to make this make sense. I'm my own $65k supplement. There's no "right" choice or "right path." Those days are gone. I've been waiting for my life to make sense for 4 decades. No more.