Having slept it and mulled over it…I’m honestly going to execute what I’ve always considered “the nuclear option” and just relocate; pull the trigger and relocate to California’s South Coast. I intimated as much in my last post, but now I’m more sure than ever, largely because the mathematics of it actually work out, much better than I expected, once I accept greater risk than I had in mind with my original plan.
Which was to use my existing skills and connections locally to make money and augment my funds, but, although it’s early days yet, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. True, I could mix socially with new people, start new lines of business, and start a new career, but I could do that just as easily in Southern California as I could where I live now; easier, to be honest, considering the much greater abundance of jobs out there, and the larger market for business, especially the sorts of jobs and businesses I’m interested in.
Confronting the possibility of reaching out, mixing socially, even establishing a real-name social media presence by making content focused on my home-based business, my locality…confronting that, I find that I just can’t stand to do it. Like, at all. The shame and the bad memories associated with the region I’ve called home for decades is too much to bear. So it looks like taking the plunge directly is the only option. Could I do that? Why, yes; yes, I could.
My best friend moved away to the beach recently, liquidated her house, and currently lives in a modest apartment there. In the likes of Santa Monica there’s an abundance of such places, and they seem to rent for $3000 to $4000 a month. I don’t have the sort of income to qualify for such an apartment; however, if I liquidated my house, my home equity would give me a six-figure sum that could pay for that rate of rent for a long time, quite a few years. Conveniently, it seems quite a few places in the area accept assets as proof of ability to pay, not just income (in stark contrast to my own region, where they’re steady-income-crazy). So I might actually be able to get in, if I really wanted to.
Even if I don’t qualify for anything, extended-stay hotel rooms are available at roughly that same $3000 to $4000 a month rate, as are vacation rentals, and these places don’t care about your income or assets; all they want is the money for each booking you make with them, which I would have in hand.
Helping my case even more is the fact that I do have income streams, which I could ramp up enough to more or less cover the $4000 a month rate for a modest apartment on the coast. Now, this would make my rent about 100% of my income, which is screwy numbers, but the upshot is that the principal from selling my house wouldn’t need to be touched, which helps my financial situation considerably.
Add in income from even podunk jobs and/or businesses and I’d actually be looking alright in terms of the sheer mathematics of it all.
So alright would I look that in fact I could just go ahead and have a baby if I wanted to, which I do. In the absence of a beloved being available, that means procuring an egg donor and hiring a surrogate, which is expensive; as far as I know one should budget around $100,000 all-in. But I’d have the $100,000 on hand, and I wouldn’t need to tap it for anything else; additionally, I’m not getting any younger, I’m not any closer to finding my dream girl (unless something weird and wonderful happens to me in Europe or on the West Coast…), and my primary psychological roadblock — not wanting to raise a child in my local area — would no longer apply, so to my way of thinking why not have a baby as a single person?
Guarantee that I’ll have accomplished that life goal of mine, and if dream girl comes into my life later so much the better; yes, it’ll make me less dateable in general, but since I’m sure I’ll have an adorable and gorgeous child it’s very possible that a girl who’s really dreamy for me wouldn’t mind at all (she might in fact like it!).
Executing this plan, I could be set up nicely on the beach by sometime late next year — I still have some cosmetic work I want done before I want to promote my mug much, and I have some traveling I need to do; before anything else I want to see Europe, and that won’t be until May (that date is certain because it’s dictated by the midnight sun season, which I want to experience at a particular location). I’ve actually decided to accelerate my plans and start abroad in April, right after the total solar eclipse, which gives me a good two months or so to explore the Old Continent.
That takes me up to the age of 30, which I will be in 2024. My own parents were both 29 when they had me, so I’m already falling behind the benchmark they set, and even through this plan I have it’ll be a while yet. Becoming a single father by choice takes time, but I’m guessing it could be done within, say, 2 years of me moving out there, which would put the age at which I had my first child at around 32. Not bad compared to my own parents; only modestly later.
And actually well ahead of the benchmark set by my grandfather; he had my mother at the age of 42. Now, he had one other child 15 years earlier, but the point is he was great as a father even starting at that age, so if I start at 32 I shouldn’t have a problem with raising my child (especially in light of how out of all my relatives I bear the strongest resemblance to him, so he’d the best analogue to look at).
It’s really amazing how when I apprehend the possibilities that are opened up by me liquidating the house and assuming greater risk, everything I want to do with my life falls into place and fits together like a watch.
As one example, the biggest showstopper to me trying out anabolic steroids (frankly, as much out of medical curiosity as a desire to build muscle, since my body loves corticosteroids; I’m dying to know what effects the other kind would have on me) was not wanting to do the slightest thing to jeopardize my fertility, since I want to have children, but if I have a child relatively immediately I could start on a cycle in my mid-thirties if I wanted to, while I’ll still be relatively youthful. I’d want to have more children after my first one someday, but if my fertility gets screwed up it wouldn’t be catastrophic, seeing as I’d already have one child.
It’s all higher-risk than what I had in mind originally, but in light of me having traveled the country, found out what I like and where I want to go, as well as exploring the possibilities locally in more depth, I believe it’s the best way. Everything I really want in life that I can control, I could get within a few years on this program. By the age of 32 or 33 I’ll be all set with what one might call the minimum viable product of my dream life. Between dermal filler, rejuvenating under-eye creams, and steroids, I’ll still have a good decade remaining where I’ll be young, and I’ll actually get to enjoy (what’s left of) my youth! Woah.