When we were younger, we could close the door on our current life, count our pennies and head out. It's going to take us nearly two years to extract ourselves this time. This is a testament to way work and life in your middle years serves to bind one.
Nearly all of us have chosen to buy a house. This is one of the tightest and thickest of cords. We were lucky in that we were able to get a wonderful house for a very small amount when we moved to Detroit. This is one of the city's great blessings....life without a mortgage! Although a number of our friends bought houses near the top of the housing bubble and are underwater in the mortgages, the amount they owe is far less than anything they would owe in the suburbs. And they have a bigger, better house.
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| Wes' dream and our debt |
Although we don't have a mortgage on our house in Detroit, we do have a mortgage. For the past eight years, we have been building a cabin in Wyoming, on land that has been in my extended family since the 1890's. This cabin, which is Wes' fondest dream, has been a major effort and major cost for years.
Because of our great discomfort with debt, we have built the cabin slowly, paying for a specific system piece at a time. We paid for the land; we put in the well; we paid for the septic system--inch by inch, step by step. However, when it came time to actually put up the structure, we had to have cash on hand. We drained our savings and eeeek!.....took a second mortgage on our house in Detroit to pay for our cabin in Wyoming.
This freaks out both of us. I HATE being in debt and feel heavily the weight of its obligation. We have been making extra and occasionally double payments to get out from under this debt. In the past two years, we have reduced the debt by 75%. The cabin eats our recreation budget...we haven't been to New York or Toronto to see theatre since we started the cabin project. We are pushing hard to get rid of this debt.
Wes cannot retire and we cannot jump on the bikes until we are mortgage free. Mort-gages-- the measurement of our death--holds us down and keeps us working, even when our souls and interests are leaning elsewhere.
I look at my friends raising kids and paying mortgages. They have the harried, worried look of a rat caught on a treadmill. This does not mean that they don't love their kids, or their houses, or even their jobs. It's just that they can't stop...ever. I can see them wear down in the effort. I can see the spark that each of them had in their twenties, their dreams of transforming the world dwindle down. The fire doesn't go out, it just stays their like a pilot light waiting to be lit.
We have banked our flame through all these long years of building a company (which I think is analogous to raising kids...lots of time and worry and money to create a strength for the future) and securing a home front and setting aside some money for our old age.
So now the old folks are trying to get the kids through college and on their own. The bike ride across the country is, I suppose, our version of a red convertible speedster. We want the wind in our hair, the endless to do list reduced to the basics. What shall I eat today? Where shall we camp? Should we stay in this beautiful spot or move onto the next one?
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| The cliche of modern life |
I so admire the young people streaming into the city and setting up a new way of doing things. They are not consigning themselves to treadmill. They are not putting their heads in the tightening noose of a long term mortgages. They are building systems of food and exchange of goods that are simple and direct...but perhaps not secure. Even more encouraging, they are not making the drop out mistakes that all us "back to land" types made in the70's. They are engaging in the creation of a new system. It looks more free from here.
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