Dry Dock

Six years can make a big difference. 

A lot has changed since we first made this blog after buying our first income property.  We made it work for a little while.  Times were difficult but we managed.  While I don't regret the initial decision as it helped us get our foot in the door of home ownership; The landlord life is not for us.  Struggling paycheck to paycheck on our own was bad enough, but now we had other people that depended on us.  And if something went wrong (and it did)  We are responsible.  

We had bad tenants and good tenants. But we realized that even with the good we had a constant weight on our chest of the next phone call or text message of disaster looming above our heads like a sword of Damocles.  

Kelly was afraid to tell me how she was having second thoughts as owning the income property was something I was passionate about at least at first.  But holding down two jobs each and trying to entertain hobbies and social lives really pressed down until we both broke down and needed some time off.  Kelly took a few weeks off for career counselling to get her head straight.  I had a nervous breakdown and made a trip to the ER.  It was a wake up call for me.

Our lives here are fleeting and we have no business working at anything that doesn't make us happy.  We are only the sum of our experiences and our reactions to them so if we settle for a mundane life we will live a mundane life.

My brush with mental illness opened my eyes to just how fragile the human mind is.  I thought I was impervious to anxiety and depression as I got past my teenage years and to a teenage mind those are the hardest years of all.  This was different though.  The feeling of helplessness was absolute.  I felt like I was in muck and if I moved forward that whatever I pushed out of my way fell in behind me and that every direction was the same.  Struggling to stay above the surface but yet struggling only to continue struggling.  

No way out.  No end in sight.  

A terrifying sense of deja-vu gripped me and it was as if I was doomed to repeat this motion forever, caught in an endless feedback loop.  This is a fear that is at the highest level.  Worse than failure or even death.  That we are on a hamster wheel to nowhere and that anything you do will bring you back to the start.  And deep down I really do believe this to be true.  That it's the only explanation of the universe that makes sense.  Big Bang, expansion, contraction, repeat.  

I'm getting away from myself.  We were not happy.  We would nag and snap at each other  and lose our tempers easily.  We were obviously both stressed and neither wanted to admit we wanted out.  When she told me and I agreed with her we were both utterly relieved.  Having a mortgage was a commitment yes, but we'd been here 6 years and selling the house for a single family home was something that could be done if we really wanted it.

Once we both had it in our minds that this home of 5+ years was now temporary,  a whole world of opportunity opened before us.  My job could come with me as I worked from home so that where ever we ended up we could hit the ground running.  We could leave the province if we wanted to and suddenly the horizon became both beautiful and terrifying.  

We have both lived in Nova Scotia our entire lives.  I love it here.  It is home.  But make no mistake I would leave in a second.  The provincial government is a joke that's just not funny anymore.  They've smashed holes in every promising industry in favor of call centers and a failing ferry service.  I am tired of my tax dollars going to politician's pensions.  I'm sure it's true in every province but I feel as though the province and the city are working against us.  Halifax hates small business.  And I've given up this running up the down escalator.

We have decided to leave this province and try our luck elsewhere.  We are leaning toward British Columbia, but Quebec and Ontario are still viable options at this point.

Our plan is Springtime 2017.

This blog will tell our story.