Tag: love

Redesigning Retirement or Luxury is not overrated if you can afford it….

So I have been rethinking a lot of what I have believed most of my adult life. I got my Doctorate. I began my career when I was 30 years old (though I have been working since I was 16 years old and neighborhood jobs before that). I have only stopped once and that’s when I got married and took 1 year and 9 months off to explore the country.

But here I am working away. I love what I do; don’t get me wrong, but I do feel that I work hard. With this, came my sense of deserving. I deserved to work hard, play hard. I deserved to travel. Most importantly, I deserved to have nice things. I certainly have a retirement plan and ancillary funds for “later in life”. I felt set. So, off I went. Acquiring things….like things I perceived as nice: Tiffany, designer handbags, decent shoes (nothing crazy, but Freebird boots aren’t cheap), and nice cars. Then nicer cars. I started traveling when I was 30. Small stuff..Mexico trips with my female friends and boyfriends. I got a time share and visited the Bahamas a few times. Then more recently (since 2017), trips to Europe and cruises. And more Louis Vuitton and Tiffany. And so it goes. Until I stunned myself into a stark reality in the past few weeks. I want to retire soon (well, in 10 years). And I am no where near ready. Sure, I still have my retirement funds. Yes, plural. But, alas, not enough. I took stock of what I had. In my newly acquired townhouse closet. Ohmygod….it mortified me. 

What the fuck am I doing? I don’t regret anything. Well, mostly anything. I don’t regret my travel experiences. At all. Do I regret the purses and shoes that aren’t even comfortable anymore? Do I regret the jewelry that I somehow collected from Tiffany, Cartier and John Atencio over the past 10-15 years? Well, it’s not Harry Winston of course, but did I need it? No. I will say there are a few pieces I bought in Europe and they are special; I wear them every day. Those are memories and I will never regret those. But, I don’t need the purchases that have no rhyme or reason. Why and how did this happen?

I have a pretty good idea and I said it before. I deserved it. I worked hard. I wanted to show myself I worked especially hard. The problem is I put that effort in the wrong place. What do I do now that I want to retire? Thinking about redesigning my retirement plans actually really motivates me to make new choices. The plan for success does not lie in what I have in front of me, in my closet. It is the cash stacked up in the bank, in my retirement fund, in my IRA. That’s what I equate with success now; not only does that make sense at my age, but it is abso-fucking-lutely mandatory. So where do I go from here?

I have a collection of barely worn shoes and jewelry that I plan on selling. I think the Feng shui of this crap is polluting my sense of the future and clean thinking. After I sell this stuff and Goodwill my larger sized clothes (next blog is ob my weight loss journey), I will be much more intentional in my purchases. As far as the luxury car, I am going to figure out the best economical plan when the lease is up. If it is less expensive to buy it out than buy a more responsible car (think Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda), I will do so. I will not lease again. Money lost. I did that just so I could afford the nicer cars monthly. I want to buy a car so I will have no monthly payments when I retire. I am buckling down. I am getting serious. I am actually enjoying this. Success is in the bank, not in my closet.

Now, is luxury overrated? No. I don’t think so. If you can afford it. If you can buy this stuff and still put the appropriate money in the bank and retire WHEN you WANT to, then all is good. I just could not do both. So here I am. And I am happier than I have ever been about my material existence. But, for the record, I am NOT giving up travel. Ever.

Those Jeans!

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So I am wearing the blue jeans again today.  The ones from my earlier post: Blue Jeans. I needed to get inspired and I was hoping thy would do the trick. I was almost out of inspiration and felt there was nothing to write about. Then I remembered: What was I doing when I got these jeans? I was leaving a not so great situation about 6.5 years ago. And that, my dear readers, is an understatement. What does that have to do with now?

I was on my Facebook feed this week. I was reading my friends’ posts and comments and updating myself on the day’s events as I do most evenings. Now what happened next shouldn’t come as a total surprise to me. After all, I had one last remaining mutual friend on Facebook with my ex-husband. The thing is, my ex had not been on Facebook in any way visible to me via this friend since about 2010. All of a sudden, his profile showed up with a comment on said friend’s post/feed. I was definitely surprised. And feeling immediately nauseated and felt my Facebook was invaded without my permission. And yes, I am well aware its a public space. I wasn’t thinking clearly, only emotionally…. Why did I feel so shocked and surprised, after all these two were good friends?  Maybe because he looked different. Maybe he looked happy. Hard to tell.  Perhaps I resented that he is so happy after putting me through so  much financial hardship and hell back then and now. Fortunately, I have refused to let him take my happiness, at least in the last 4-5 years.  But for all my efforts to overcome that whole incident that I will call a marriage, I was hoping he wouldn’t be looking so smug or happy. SO hard to tell with him.

And that’s why I am wearing the jeans today. To celebrate strength, the strength I have had all along to get through unexpected events that throat me for a loop. I didn’t get totally unravelled, but it was definitely disconnecting.  But now I know, he’s nearby with the death of distance that social media brings us closer to. Its okay. I know there is no way he would contact me.

I am okay. And I say that every  day. Because it is so true.

Have a fantastic end of your weekend. I’m glad I kept these jeans!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good secrets, bad secrets…: My introduction to a three part series on what my marriage taught me

Are secrets okay? Are we only as sick as our secrets? Why do we keep secrets? I feel that sometimes we keep other people’s secrets and some of our own to preserve a bit of privacy and dignity, some self-respect and a dash of mystery.  We keep secrets about  arriving baby gender, relationships (of any type), opinions on work, money and politics.  We do this to keep the peace and keep our opinions and personal history to ourselves. Is there anything wrong with this?  Other times, our secrets aren’t based in any nobility.

Our other secrets are not based on dignity, respect or privacy.  These secrets  build upon each other, slowly growing till they get so big. Then   airing out  these well-kept skeletons is so daunting, it’s scary. Super scary. If we wait long enough, the secrets create a solid icon clad wall. The wall is fused with pride, fear, and  insecurity including financial and emotional. To get through this from the inside out we have to be strong. SO strong.  This is the part that can really suck. Like.Really.Suck.  We can’t expect others to get in if we can’t even get out. These are the secrets that make us sick and poisoned inside. Poisoned by the pride that makes us feel that we are better than you. The toxic insecurity that makes you NEVER as good as.  These secrets that destroy us. Unless…..

Unless we can talk or write or get out alive. This is why I want to write about what my marriage taught me. I can write about it.  I want to share it because if it gives you pause, if it makes you think about how you view  something sour and wretched and awful, then I say thank you. I have done my job writing this three part post series:

Part I: What my marriage taught me about my relationship with money

Part II: What my marriage taught me about fear

Part III: What my marriage taught me about me and future interpersonal/romantic relationships

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I am going to ask for your input, your experience,  how your last relationship prepared you for the next one!
Stay tuned!!

The love pie….finite or infinite?

I have always wondered about this in a battle of philosophical ideas of love vs.  the pragmatic expression of love. Are we able to love to our heart’s content and able to have boundless love for many of our close family and friends? Are we able to un-prioritize our love, allowing  enough to go around, thereby expanding  what I will call  the love pie? Roll out more dough and make the crust just a bit bigger and add more filling  to allow more into  love our lives? We don’t have to limit this….it can go on forever and essentially feel  exponentially amazing in the way we give and receive love? There are so many ways to express this love and so many people to express our feelings with on any given day.

There there is the pragmatic love pie: this pie has slices. This pie has a self-limiting size: the 24 hour day. This pie tells us we can only do so much for ourselves and loved ones in this given period of time. So depending on the obligations on any set day, there is only so much we can do to show this love. And when we start determining how we are going to share and demonstrate this love, it starts becoming hard to show love to everyone and respond to everyone trying to share theirs with you: it’s the school play, the family dinner, the friend time, the texts to “check in” with those we care about. It’s everything we do in a 24 hour day to reach those around us. We can certainly assert that those we love will definitely understand life gets a bit crazy. We know texts don’t get answered and lunches get cancelled and it doesn’t make us love any less.  But we have to make sure  when we get our daily pie, we don’t keep forgetting to give the same  people a piece of it each day. This gets almost impossible pragmatically. So we prioritize. How do we prioritize love?  How do we determine who gets pie slices today? Do we keep making the pie slices smaller and smaller till everyone gets a slice, understanding some people continue to feel not quite fed? I think this pragmatism of having enough of us/our pie is what causing so much conflict about “I have enough love to go around”….

Am I still being a hopeful cynic, or a constant contradiction? Is that really just the same thing?