Signs of Life

Here it is, Spring 2012. I shall, mostly, forego the usual lamentation that I have not been more prodigious in my prose production. Alas, I am but a mere mortal, and all men have feet of clay. I will note that one could consider that my lack of output may also be a good thing. Sometimes, it's more important what you don't write about than what you do. I sometimes wish others felt the same way. In any event, on with the narrative!

It's been an interesting time, these last several months. I had a period of unemployment late last summer, and it proved to be a stimulus to considering ways that my life might be different in a good way. I really enjoyed the time off. I think I would enjoy a lot more time off. Work consumes much of my most productive time, and I work to pay debt and buy crap. So, I've reduced the amount of crap I buy, and I've been throwing most of my paycheck at my debt, largely living off my navy pension. Right now, if all goes well, I should be debt-free, with exception of my mortgage, by the end of September. Should my program not be funded in fiscal year 2013, I can subsist on my retirement income and enjoy a great deal of time to myself. If my program is funded for FY 13, I'll work and save that income with the idea that I'll use it to remodel the interior of Action Dave's Cool-guy Bachelor Pad. After FY 13, well, we'll see.

All of which is merely trivia, but what is not trivial is that for the first time in my working life, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what exactly I'm doing and why I'm doing it. During my navy career, I was mostly just following a narrative that had been written by others, which I had adopted almost by default. During that time, I also became a husband and a father, and so those roles set the requirements for working and income after my navy career was over. But I'm divorced now, my kids are adults and about to be on their own. I help out from time to time as I'm able, but they're largely at the point where assistance from me isn't necessary.

Work had become another form of Groundhog Day, being trapped in a meaningless repetition of habituated behaviors. Desire and consumption binding me to work by means of debt. I had believed that the experience of my divorce, and ten years of therapy, had opened my eyes emotionally. I realized that I was responsible for my happiness, indeed, all of my emotions, and the interior experience of my life. But what eluded me then was the role of materialism and consumption in filling an emotional need. This particular insight didn't occur in a blinding flash. It only revealed itself incrementally.

I'm sure this sounds foolish to most of you, but I've never been comfortable with money. I let my then-wife manage all of our finances, turning over most of my paycheck to her and giving her control over all our finances. I know now that was not helpful to maintaining a healthy relationship. While I was paying child support I felt some resentment. The settlement from the divorce was not exactly what I would call fair. But that's neither here nor there, except those negative feelings helped keep me from looking closely at how much money I was making and what I was doing with it. Money has always just had a kind of negative emotional valence to me. I would keep track of it enough to make sure I could pay the bills, but that was it.

Another thing that probably sounds foolish to most of you is I never really looked at my relationship to stuff. When I was married, if there was a big-ticket item I wanted, I'd have to get approval from my wife. Sometimes that worked, often it didn't. When I would sometimes buy things with the money I kept for myself, she would often criticize me. It's foolish, but I'd sneak things into the house, make sure I got home before she did to collect the UPS shipment. Later discovery didn't seem to incur the same criticism, but a new box always did.

When we were divorced, I was suddenly, mostly, free to chart my own economic course. In terms of the settlement, I basically left the marriage with no credit card debt and no cash; about $10K in an IRA, a looming car payment, and a huge child support bill. I spent about 10 months looking for a job, and had to liquidate the IRA to make ends meet. I was living in a cheap apartment, and the car was my new Montero Sport, which came with no-payments, no-interest financing for the first year, which is what made that possible at all. I re-financed after I was hired for a lower interest rate. But once I started working, I was able to meet my child support obligations easily, and I could suddenly indulge my nearly every whim when it came to stuff.

And I bought a lot of it. Along the way, my two credit card companies kept raising my credit limit. I kept encountering things I had to have. I kept getting pay raises. After I bought the condo, I developed a social life. Action Dave, Cool-guy Bachelor. When we're out at the club, Action Dave picks up the tab, 'cause that's how he rolls. And everything seemed okay... In an unconscious, unawareness of what I was doing sort of way.

Child support was my second-largest monthly bill, coming in just slightly behind my mortgage. When I finished paying child support, I suddenly had a huge increase in disposable income. About a year ago, mostly out of idle curiosity, I sat down and added up what I made between my retirement check and my paycheck each month. (Previously discussed in this post.) I know this sounds weird, but I'd never really looked at that number before. My job pays me every two weeks, and that's one number, not very large. I get a monthly retirement check, and that's another number that's significantly larger; but I never really knew the actual number for my monthly income. For some reason, when I computed that, it seemed huge! And I had to ask myself, "Where the hell does all this go every month?"

Which is the question that started this whole realization about my unhealthy relationship with stuff, money and debt. Once I looked at the amount in a monthly context - I knew what I made on an annual basis, again, kind of an abstract number - it made me realize I was literally wasting a lot of money, much of it on credit card interest, much of it on bar bills, much of it on soon-to-be-obsolete stuff.

While money still held a negative emotional valence, and I didn't like thinking about it, I realized I had a problem and I needed to do something about it. So about this time last year, I decided to see if I could live on my retirement income and use all of my work income to pay off debt. I cancelled my unlimited data plan for my iPad. I reduced cable TV to the minimum necessary to maintain internet service. I never watched TV (except for Battestar Galactica!), yet I was paying about $100.00 a month for stuff I didn't watch. I started bringing my own lunch to work, and when I did go to Subway, bought cheaper sandwiches and no extras. I stopped going out to bars. And I started throwing my paycheck at my credit cards.

I had paid off one card ($19K) by the latter part of May. My Montero Sport was giving me problems and I didn't want to sink any more money into it, so I bought a new car after I'd paid off the first credit card. Even in this, I think I'd made some progress. I'd been considering cars in the $45K price range, I ended up getting something much more modest. In the course of getting the loan, my credit union invited me to transfer the balance of my remaining credit card to a card from them with no interest for a year. I did so, and figured I'd pay off the car before I started paying down the credit card, as that balance wasn't accumulating any interest and the car was about 4.25%.

In August, after I'd sent a few paychecks to the credit union for the car, I was laid off. Some panic ensued, but I was grateful I'd done the financial homework earlier in the year. I'd need to find another job, but with unemployment, I could meet all my obligations for the time being. While I was laid off, I began clearing out a lot of the stuff I'd accumulated since the divorce. That kind of brought my unhealthy relationship to stuff into clearer focus.

But it was the feeling of relaxation, the lack of stress, that I began to feel after about three weeks, to experience silence as opposed to the complaints and arguments of old men in a cube-farm, that was really a revelation. While walking Bodhi one day in early September, a thought came to me, "Make no small plans," and I realized I wasn't going to go back to work, to find another job. I was going to find a way to live by some other means.

Two days later, one of the guys I'd worked for called me and said they'd found a new program sponsor, and they had the money to bring me back and they wanted me back. This precipitated a kind of dilemma, but I suppose it's the kind of dilemma most people would welcome. After seemingly resolving not to go back to work in the conventional sense, I was almost immediately offered an opportunity to do just that. I decided to do the obvious thing and agree to return to the position, because the opportunity to reduce or eliminate the remainder of my debt in a fairly short time meant that I could enjoy a period of future unemployment with fewer worries.

Since then, I've made good progress. Not as much as I'd have preferred, but things come up. Since I'd been paying much more than the monthly payment on the car, I don't actually owe another payment until May. After I returned to work, and dealt with an unexpected expense, I focused on paying off the credit card, since the grace period ends in June and the interest rate is 14%. I expect to have that card paid off by the end of April, when I'll return to paying off the car. I should have the car paid off by the end of September, which is where we began in this meandering missive.

The point, to the extent that I have one, is that I feel as though I have a better relationship to work, money, and stuff. I still like stuff. But I try to acquire only the things that I feel will truly add something worthwhile to the experience of my life.

The only major purchases I've made in the last year are the iPhone 4S, a new camera, the Olympus E-PM1, two lenses for it, the Panasonic Lumix 20mm/f1.7 and the Oly mZuiko 45mm/f1.8 and the electronic viewfinder. Truthfully, had I known Oly was going to release the OM-D in April, I would have waited. I will likely buy the OM-D, but it's not urgent.

Last week I bought the newest release of the iPad. My original iPad only has 256MB of RAM, and won't run the iOS version of iPhoto. I've also been noticing that it has become somewhat pokier in its responses since iOS 5.1. It's still useful, and I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet, but so far I don't regret the purchase of the new iPad with its higher resolution display, faster processor and greater RAM. iPhoto on the iPad is a lot of fun and a great way to view and edit my photographs.

I've only bought one BluRay DVD, and I kind of regret that purchase. It was an impulse buy, and I suppose I was unduly influenced by it being discounted and including a DVD and iTunes copy of the movie. This is how you go broke saving money.

What I've avoided is an endless array of chargers, stands, speakers, remotes, USB this and that, toys, tools, Kick-starter widgets, video games, designer pads of paper, fit-bits, "antiques," and a list of "Oooohhh, shiny!" things that goes on and on. This too has been something of a liberating experience. Though I do sometimes miss the initial rush of dopamine one experiences when finding a UPS package on one's doorstep.

There are two other purchases on the horizon somewhere, aside from the OM-D, the Oly 50-200mm zoom lens, and a new TV. If the program is indeed funded for FY 13, I'll probably pick up each of those and then go back to banking the rest for the future renovation of the sky-pad.

While I'm no more comfortable talking or thinking about money than before, I think I'm in a better relationship with it. And I think I have some insight into what I've been using stuff for, in terms of meeting emotional needs. It doesn't really work, but it provides a hell of a distraction.

For any of you still reading out there, spring has a arrived in the northern hemisphere, and the signs of life extend to more things than just the flowers and the birds. The groundhog may have seen his shadow, but its important that sometimes we see ours too.