The ‘American Dream’ is my nightmare. Here’s my exit plan…

Ah my future. I am trying to leave Texas. I wouldn’t describe this intention to vacate the one star review state as “desperate” but whatever word comes before it on the OMG I hate it here scale. Of course my AC drama makes listing my house for sale a bit of a hurdle, but still. I will one day leave this state. It can’t have my soul.

One thing I don’t address in my latest post and video is where I’m going. There’s a few reasons for this:

• I don’t know specifically where I’m going, only general areas of interest.
• I don’t know when I’m going, since I have to sell my house before I know when I can go.

But I do have a vision in mind. A fantasy. I have also checked out a fox hunt in my general area of desire. I’ve looked at their website before, but looking recently refilled my black heart with a renewed vigor to exit stage humid asap. Especially with my AC taking a hiatus.

It’s harder to leave one area when you don’t know where you’re going. To be clear, I’ve knowingly wanted to leave Texas for coming up on a year now. I’ve unknowingly wanted to leave Texas for two. My emotions are not a straight line drawn on a page. They’re a jumbled ball of yarn, tangled and fraying. It can be hard to pull them apart to decipher one from the other.

Why you should vision board

This is one value to a vision board. It takes the “I’ll know it when I see it” in a more literal sense, wrapping up mood with real images to form a target. It can evolve, change, and become something else over time, but what I’ve found is the foundation of it, the root feelings, stay the same. Through a vision board, I can see that what I want may not be physical things, but intangible ones.

I created a board with Canva, under the shade of a tree, the birds chirping, cicadas trilling. Had to spray myself with Off! to avoid being breakfast.

I would say this is the immediate vision board, the life I want yesterday. It represents a simpler, relaxed life, filled with peace and love of animals, open space, and natural beauty. It’s a casual, fun life with fewer responsibilities and obligations. A big part of me longs to be a kid again and the reasons for that are Therapy 101.

Because that’s how I’m designing my next phase: fewer responsibilities. Less monetary overhead. No debt.

That’s right, no debt. Because not included in the board above is a house. Did you see that? Look again. No house. My plan is to buy a gently used Airstream, live in that while I build my own small house, slowly, and live without a mortgage. Forever.

Debt is not a dream it’s a nightmare

My opinions on “home ownership is the American dream” has, like many other opinions, shifted. My house is over 2000 square feet. I don’t even use two of the rooms. I do not need, nor want, all that space. More importantly, I don’t want to pay for that space, nor pay to cool and heat that space. It makes far more sense for a family to occupy it than a single lady with her two stinking cute dogs and an offering from the cat distribution system.

What I will instead do is buy property outright. Raw land. No house on it. Hopefully a well, but I don’t even need power right away. Just water. The Airstream can be outfitted with solar, in fact I might prefer that. We shall see.

Everything else I will build overtime as I can pay for it. I’m not interested in going into debt. Right now I owe on my house, and that’s it. No car payments, no student loans. Just the massive house tied into a thirty year fixed. Hell to the no.

Sustainability is more than a buzz word

My opinions on 30 year mortgages can be a whole separate post, honestly. But to keep it short: being locked into a thirty year debt keeps us locked into a life we may not like. Pass.

You’ll also notice in the vision board a lack of specified nine-to-five. That’s also on purpose. Work is unnatural. I’ll say that louder for the wage slaves locked in a “I heart capitalism because the left wing hates it” mindset in the back with their talk radio blasting: work is unnatural. Human beings invented work. It’s just us. Every other species has direct access to what they need. Humans made it far more complicated due to population surges that began with the agricultural revolution. We didn’t domesticate wheat. Wheat domesticated us. It’s been a slog ever since.

This isn’t an opinion, it’s historical. You may not know that due to another tangent I could go down and maybe will later: the “education” we’re given is garbage in order to keep us locked into the system. The more you learn about humanity, the more you realize how much of what we do is kind of insane. Unnatural. Not healthy.

Incidentally, if you’re still wearing a team jersey of Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, it’s too soon for you. Tribalism must be shed to find truth. And a lot of people aren’t ready for that. This kind of mind shift comes in phases, not all at once. Maybe this post will be a seed.

Anyway, back to me. No big house, no debt. No big job, no big expenses. I’m interested in sustainability, and not just the kind hammered on by hippies. Though I’m not against hippies or hammers.

I’m going for experiences over possessions. Adventure instead of corporate ring climbing. Creative accomplishments, not employee of the month. Meaning over metrics.

Ditching a mortgage is the first step toward this freedom.

A smaller house for a bigger life

To be clear, I’m not against houses. I’ll be building one. Probably a cob or an earthbag house. Something small, beautiful, unique, and totally mine. I need space to live, I don’t need to live for my space.

Because while I have enjoyed living on a ranch to some degree, I haven’t enjoyed the overhead. Not just the monetary overhead, the time overhead. I have worked so long to afford so much and haven’t had enough time to enjoy it. I reject this paradigm. I also hate mowing grass every two hours. I might move to dirt next. We’ll see.

This is the vision. This is the plan. More fun, just as much sun. More dry, humidity bye. No more debt, beachy sunsets. Tally ho, no rodeo.

Look at those rhymes. I should do this all the time.