Ask any military brat and they’ll tell you the first thing in life they learned is not to get too comfortable. I wasn’t a military brat but my family did move a lot when I was growing up and starting at age 18 and for the next 30 years of my adult life I moved in and out of hundreds of apartments going between Chicago and San Francisco regularly. (I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area).
Personally I think some of the most well-adjusted people are the types that never got comfortable or complacent in their living situation. But that’s just my opinion. There are a host of other social issues that come with the lack of a stable, steady living environment. To pack up your life every couple of years, leave friends behind, change schools and even change what you wear (moving from warmer climates to colder climates for example requires a wardrobe change) can often take its toll on some. Others adjust accordingly and transitions come easy for them.
In light of the Maui tragedy and a long list of tragedies that came before this one, it felt like a piece about change and preparation and knowing when to let go was long overdue.
In 2017 I had just married my husband, in San Francisco. We met in 2012. Upon meeting him I knew he was husband material so I started my 5 year plan: marriage and own a home.
Five year plans may be the most valuable piece of advice I would ever give anyone starting out. Don’t get comfortable. Make five year plans.
Over the years in San Francisco I had this creeping, gnawing feeling in the back of my mind that San Francisco may not be the City where my husband and I would spend the rest of our lives. When I met my husband he was perfectly content being a renter for the rest of his life. He had already been a home-owner and knew the expense, time and energy it takes to manage a house. He was happy to leave this added drain to his life behind and just let a landlord or management company handle everything for him. To me, his entire existence represents the life affirmation, “Simplicity is key to a successful life.” He had given up his vintage car and replaced it with a good, solid bike, he had given up his home and replaced it with an efficient, well-lit apartment. When I met him, we was living in a second story apartment in a 12-unit apartment building across the street from Alamo Square Park. Every single thing we could ever need was at our fingertips, with a breathtaking view to top it off. It was easy to see why he wouldn’t ever want to leave.
But as work became more and more sparse for us and things started to change in The City, we felt compressed. Consciously or not we started to use every trip we took to visit family and friends throughout the country as an opportunity to see what else was out there.
Between 2012 and 2017 we looked at Portland, Oregon; Chicago, IL; Charleston, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Detroit, Michigan; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Columbus, Ohio and even Augusta, Georgia as options. When I checked my watch and realized that 5 years had passed, I gave my husband a little nudge and we settled on Pittsburgh because of its affordability and location. The house we purchased is a 30 second walk to a 15 minute bus ride that takes us to Downtown Pittsburgh. This appealed to our urban natures. After all, we didn’t own a car then either.
However, when my husband and I took the final leap and left San Francisco for good in August 2018 ( just slightly outside of my 5 year plan by the time the final closing was done) and moved to this community of deep poverty 15 minutes outside of Downtown Pittsburgh, it took me less than 10 seconds to know I had to make another 5 year plan. There was no furniture at the house at the time so I had the space to think; plus I was waiting for the airline to let me know where my lost luggage was and my husband was packing up a 40 foot truck back in San Francisco to drive across the country.
I took this time alone, unencumbered by boxes and clutter, to think over my five year plan. I hadn’t been in the house five minutes when I was already planning our exit which means I knew not to get too comfortable and to be honest, I never really did.
Instinctively I knew it wasn’t really going to work out and a series of circumstances took place that confirmed my instincts and confirmed my 2018 goal of another 5 year plan. When living in instinct you have to let go of a degree of control. You have to loosen up a little, throw a little bit of caution to the wind while maintaining that balance of living in reality and being present,while also controlling your thoughts and words. Writing out a plan of action helps. Writing out lists is very beneficial. Not allowing complacency or comfort to give you a false sense of security is key. Always keep this new normal at the back of your mind: in the world we live in now things will change.
Some people call me a black-piller or that I just live in some sort of negative space all the time. I wasn’t born with the luxury of inheriting a home or really anything like the generation before me was born with. I am Generation X. We’re not allowed any of that. My own mother’s mother left her some money so she could afford to upgrade a few things that needed upgrading. That is a luxury or benefit I will never have and cannot count on. So, no I don’t live in a negative space. I have a keen sense of the world and its inhabitants and despite living in instinct and even though sometimes my timing is almost magical, reality is always at my fingertips.
And, the reality is you are never warned when everything could so quickly be snatched away from you.
When I heard rumors that some Maui authorities didn’t even sound the alarm when tragedy struck, I thought it was odd. In San Francisco, a siren sounds every Tuesday at noon as a test of their emergency response system. Maui has the same system that announces every Monday. But the lack of announcement reminded me of the series of incidents that take place in our community regularly, never offering any warning to the residents: random street closures, deafening construction for no apparent reason, weeks or even months of fireworks going off overhead, random power outages that are not weather-related. These small interruptions and trauma-inducing or even nerve-rattling incidents are not nearly as horrible as the Maui tragedies but the point is: there was no warning that your life was about to change. The lack of care or the lack of the most basic communication efforts to the residents was the part that was alarming. Shouldn’t residents be warned? Who decided it wasn’t worth it to warn them of this change or interruption or in Maui’s specific case, this tragedy.
When it was discovered that certain attempts to help victims of tragedies were being thwarted by Federal agencies or local authorities it reminded me of the time my husband and I attempted to clean up an abandoned, garbage-filled plot across the street from us and how that attempt was thwarted by a local politician who basically threatened us.
Whether living in a neighborhood of poverty or in some of the most coveted, sought after real estate in the world, like Lahaina, Maui the circumstances are the same: there will always be something to undermine your sense of place and your sense of a stable life. When you try to do something nice or make a home or create value to the place around you, some higher authority will always undermine your efforts.
Is this the New Normal everyone is talking about?
Despite this instinct that there had to be something better, we made the most of our time in the neighborhood of poverty. My husband planted beautiful flowers and tried his hand at growing vegetables. We ate really well for a couple of years, eating straight out of our urban-backyard garden. He transformed our gravel-laden parking pad into a lush oasis of raised beds, flowers, sunflowers. We ate fresh tomatoes, kale, lettuce, cucumbers and squash and we planted an herb garden of basil, oregano and thyme. Our front yard was a sea of color. Of course he planted dahlias (the official City flower of San Francisco), tulips, marigolds and roses and bright orange California poppies.
Even when you know it’s not forever, it’s important to make the place you currently occupy as lovely and beautiful as it can be. Be resourceful with the space. But, it’s also important to know when to let go.
It’s also important to be clear about what you want in life. Compromise is a part of life. But compromises should come at a point in life where it won’t make a drastic difference. You may have to compromise with the fact that the price of food is going up. But don’t compromise with the long term. Think about yourself years from now and what would make you the most comfortable.
When I made my 5 year plan in 2018 I knew I couldn’t compromise on weather so we had to live in a warm climate and the new house had to be one level, it had to a very special house with a very special history, preferably on a corner lot so there would be more land for my husband to plant beautiful lush gardens for every passersby to view, it had to represent warmth and kindness and something unseen in today’s busy, hard world: a place to sit on the porch and swing gently while enjoying a cool glass of lemonade; it had to be the biggest house I ever lived in, open but private, a place for friends or family to vacation and feel at home, it had to be within walking distance to a beach and the neighborhood and the neighbors had to be friendly and affable (when we first moved to Pittsburgh it was impossible to get anyone to help me do things like cut the lawn), the county or city or town and its municipal leaders would need to be transparent and I personally need a charming third space (cafe) that appeals to my particular aesthetics within walking distance of my dream house, if I needed to just get away from work or the house for a bit. Oh, and sidewalks and roads: I need smooth, clean, perfect sidewalks so I can ride my bike or walk on them without tripping and falling. This is a luxury I took for granted in San Francisco. When we moved to our neighborhood of deep poverty in Pittsburgh, all the sidewalks were rubbled out and the streets had sink-holes and were in bad shape. I have permanent scars on my knees from falling on these jagged Pittsburgh sidewalks. In fact, you might find the occasional bumper sticker on the back of a car that reads “No I’m not drunk, I’m just avoiding potholes.”
So, now that the 5 year plan is up would you believe I got every single thing on my list?
Five year plans can come to fruition for you if you have a partner or a spouse that isn’t afraid of hard work, listens to you, reads the stars, exercises patience, uses failure as an opportunity for future success, isn’t too sentimental but lives in a space of empathy and has a critical eye for quality of life and is willing to give up certain parts of his past in order to secure a better future. Having a partner that understands the value of time management, knows how to be flexible and has a keen eye in general also helps. It’s impossible to keep up with your 5-year plans if you don’t have a good partner. Your spouse needs to be someone who won’t simply look at what seems to be impossible circumstances and then give up. It’s a tall order in a spouse but I’m confident they’re out there for you, for any single women reading this piece.
Or, on the other end, your spouse must also know when it’s time to give up the dream.
When we moved to the Pittsburgh neighborhood we are currently leaving we knew it wasn’t forever but we knew we had to make the best of it. Before remote work took off, my husband and I strategized about becoming a media brand. We decided to try our hand at throwing what we love toward a new dream: our interest in good music music and art and food, and sense of community; we shelved our energy and focus from finding work in our professional fields to creating something bigger, bolder and better for ourselves and the world around us. We designed business cards; we designed flyers; we shared this idea of community get-togethers with a focus on small businesses, music, festivals and art. We were very excited and threw everything we had into this idea. We wanted to manage pop-ups, gather everyone who was interested and scoop them up into our dream.
This was in the Fall, 2019.
About six months later in the Spring of 2020 our dream was destroyed. We hadn’t even had one event, hadn’t made any money at it of course and before it even got off the ground it was snatched away from us.
To add insult to injury, because we had officially registered it with the state, we had to file taxes on it, which we did even though it was zeroes all the way down. It became this bitter albatross across our neck. I threw out the business cards, erased our social media presence and did everything I could to forget. My husband picked up work in his field and I focused my attention on that five year plan.
Often times, when in the middle of making plans and changing your life for the better, someone else has other plans to attempt to undermine you, especially when you’re focused. Keep the focus but address the sabotage. Turn the failure back into curating something new and re-assess personal goals and focus on what you need.
The dream of a media brand was something we wanted but it wasn’t something we needed.
Before closing the brand with the state of PA which requires a $70 payment, and a series of nonsensical bureaucratic hoops to jump through, we continued to file taxes (with zeroes all the way down) but with our perfect new life on the horizon, we filed just a couple weeks too late. As a result, we received a letter from the IRS stating we owed $1300! For a business that never made any money! My husband wrote back, using their own language as to why that fee should be waived, or forfeited, and within days we received a letter back from the IRS agreeing with him.
Take your wins and run with them.
Make five year plans. Be vigilant and stay focused. Stay away from false hope or a false sense of security. Don’t let the dreams you want distract you from what you need.
Over the 25 years that I rode the street cars and Cable Cars in the most beautiful City in the world, as I attended every single Outside Lands Music Festival and every single Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Music Festival, as I rode my bike through Golden Gate Park down to the beach. As I enjoyed movie night in one of the hundreds of City Parks in San Francisco, hugged friends and chatted away at sparkling farmer’s markets and as I enjoyed the best life imaginable I never took it for granted. I knew in the back of my mind it wouldn’t last. And it was that intuition, that gnawing sense of knowing that always crept into my subconscious at the most unlikely times, like at the top of the ferris wheel at the now-defunct Treasure Island Music Festival. I saw through it all and focused on my Five Year Plan.
And through it all, I will continue to be grateful and humble. I will listen before speaking. I will live in empathy toward my new neighbors. I will let the new house and the new place and the memories that were weaved into those walls I’m painting teach me how to be better and live better, for the world. And I will be thankful for you, and for everyone who has ever shown me an ounce of kindness and I will cherish the man I married who is smart, talented and not afraid of hard work and respects the value and power behind the five year plan.