Two months ago, things fell apart in Florida. A combination of having my position eliminated almost two years ago, failing to make my own business, and just difficult situations meant I needed to flee.
But worse than that, I was too stubborn to actually flee, especially since over the last year I felt like I was making progress, possibly recovering things, rescuing things.
But it didn’t happen. Things took a turn, and I got rescued by family, and moved back into a wintry state.
I am very grateful for that rescue, even if all I do is grumble and curse that winter is only a poorly-balanced punishment designed by a cruel and evil universe against the pure and innocent inhabitants of reality who only want to try to survive and, if not find joy, then at least minimize the amount of pain that is heaped upon the innocent by the beforementioned cruel and evil universe, only to be humiliated and crushed by said cruel and evil universe repeatedly, only for their dark and malevolent amusement. With snow. And cold. And ice.
*Ahem!*
I’ve had two months to review what I was able to take with me, what was left behind, and to better understand what happened and how that affects things going forward. Two months to reflect on poor choices made because of stupid “self-reliance”. Two months to set up a less bleak future and start recovering.
So, a brief summary: I lost at least half of my belongings. All of my kitchen stuff – appliances, equipment, etc. Most of my bedroom stuff. A good deal of my personal belongings. I did keep safe my rarest/most-prized books in my collection, the most personally valuable memorabilia from my father and previous stages in life. And I kept most of my technology. But the things that got lost, that’s taken time to uncover and understand.
When it really comes down to it, I do think I’m better served by that stuff disappearing into the past. If I could redo things with the same space and time limitations, there might be a little shifting of some things, but not much. I am very grateful to have gotten through it with as much as I did.
But the debts accrued are ridiculous. It cost around $7,000 to move to Florida six years ago. Moving back cost almost half-as-much on top. At least $10,000. And that’s without spending a penny on hotels on the way back north, driving non-stop, surviving off of vending machine snacks the whole way. And that isn’t all of the debt, it’s just the most obvious/noticeable.
At least the debts are now being figured and handled, slowly.
But the lingering effect, now that I’m less precarious, is how many intangible things were lost due to circumstances. I was focusing on survival far more than I’ve had to focus on survival in a very long time. For almost two years, I was planning around weekly grocery bills, making sure every penny put hunger at bay for as long as possible, for myself and my cat and my brother.
Which meant everything, and I do mean everything, else fell to the wayside.
Now I’m catching up. My Mac mini is disgustingly out of date, so is my iPhone. My Windows PC has had so many troubles to it, I’ve just consigned myself to making it limp along. Now I can look at replacements – to find out what new systems look like and how much they cost, what numbers have gone up and how much that really means.
Macs have changed a lot. Mini PCs have too. Processors with more cores, more USB connections and faster networking components, and more expandability with updated peripherals, all good things. But I didn’t expect the disgusting rise in the cost of RAM and SSDs. Despite that, more capable systems are available for about what I spent on these existing computers.
The AI integrations have seemingly moved into hardware, and just gone quieter – this frustrates me. Not only because privacy seems to take a back seat now, but also that “AI” is being blanket-applied to things that it doesn’t apply to. Simple logic-gated decision trees are not AI, but get presented that way. Ties back to ChatGPT and similar are hidden under the hood. So, it’s hard to tell what’s AI and what’s not, and what’s integrated and what’s not. It’s also hard to tell how to disable the things you don’t want, disregarding some of the dishonesty out there about “disabling” AI (I’m looking at you, Microsoft/Copilot, through my Windows 11 Software Update glasses, and you too Google, through my Chrome/YouTube glasses.) In fairness: Apple seemingly had some ties to ChatGPT, but those have either disappeared or gone silent-mode as well.
But, all in all, I’ve got catching up to do in terms of technology, and it’s already underway.
I’ve also started regaining weight lost due to previously tight dietary expenditures. Stress is also down, with only occasional panic attacks. While I don’t feel completely healthy yet, I do feel healthier.
The job I have now is hard, but do-able. I’m working as a die cast trimmer in a factory, something I never would’ve imagined before November. The hours are long, 10 hours a day for four days a week, but there are weekly paychecks and one mandatory overtime day every other week and optional two or three overtime days as operations scale up. I’ve gotten past the initial tiredness, and am now working through trying to strengthen and build endurance.
And my expenses have lowered – I’m spending probably a fifth less on groceries and getting better food out of it. And while I’m currently living under family roof until I get my feet back under myself, looking forward – rent is two-thirds what it was in Florida, for places with better construction and cheaper utilities, as well as better accessibility to stores and necessities.
So, yeah, things are improving.
It just takes time.
Thanks for stopping by, reader. I hope life is treating you well. Please try to help make life better for those around you, as life is still scary.
Skåll!