Link to original post: [drupal=2245]home repair: a lesson in anger management[/drupal]
The hole in the hallway of my parents' house had been there ever since I put my foot through the drywall when I was sixteen.
In the years that followed, regimes in other parts of the world rose and fell; wars began and waned. My cousins married and started families; my grandparents passed on, and we scattered their ashes to the seas. The damage to my parents' house stayed just as it was. And I was gone.
In those years, I was a university student. The university kicked me out. I got back in. I graduated and passed myself from job to job.
My roommates moved out and moved on. My friends got accepted to graduate schools out of state. They earned higher degrees, got jobs, quit those jobs, moved back, bought property, got engaged, and made wedding plans.
The people around me kept moving. They broke up with their girlfriends. They moved across the country. They quit their jobs to live in Las Vegas. They enlisted. They came back, got jobs, got wives, and re-enlisted.
They raised dogs and had kids.
They moved around me. I watched from the graveyard shift, from weekends and afternoons and mornings as a production chemist and expendable drone to multiple employers, from holidays sacrificed to triple shifts in order to make minimum payments.
Market forces collided and nearly took my bank account with it.
And the hole in the hallway of my parents' house was still there.
I patched it up last week, along with a smaller hole in the next room, one roughly the size of my father's fist.
---
"A house is something you own to live in," my friend said. "That's how my coworker put it, and I agree. She doesn't understand why all these people are complaining about their property value dropping. She said, 'You have a house to live in it.'"
"She's wrong.
"A house is an investment. Think about it. You don't know what could happen in the future. You could get laid off. You never know. Whatever extra money you make now can go towards your future. Towards that uncertainty. You can invest it or save it.
"If you're going to own property, it might as well be property that can provide you with two things: shelter and potential earnings. That's better than just having one of those things.
"Think about it. Everything you do in this life requires money. EVERYTHING. Your family can't bury you without money. And who's going to take care of you if something goes wrong? You know how employers are cutting retirement benefits these days. You think the government's gonna take care of you? No. Those f*ckers don't know what the h*ll they're doin'. You can't depend on anyone."
After a pause, he said, "Well, I'm not good with investments. You know that. I'd rather just own a home to live in it. I'm not good with that business stuff."
I sighed and stared at the ceiling of my rented studio, cell phone hot against my ear. "I'm not good at that sh*t either."
The hole in the hallway of my parents' house had been there ever since I put my foot through the drywall when I was sixteen.
In the years that followed, regimes in other parts of the world rose and fell; wars began and waned. My cousins married and started families; my grandparents passed on, and we scattered their ashes to the seas. The damage to my parents' house stayed just as it was. And I was gone.
In those years, I was a university student. The university kicked me out. I got back in. I graduated and passed myself from job to job.
My roommates moved out and moved on. My friends got accepted to graduate schools out of state. They earned higher degrees, got jobs, quit those jobs, moved back, bought property, got engaged, and made wedding plans.
The people around me kept moving. They broke up with their girlfriends. They moved across the country. They quit their jobs to live in Las Vegas. They enlisted. They came back, got jobs, got wives, and re-enlisted.
They raised dogs and had kids.
They moved around me. I watched from the graveyard shift, from weekends and afternoons and mornings as a production chemist and expendable drone to multiple employers, from holidays sacrificed to triple shifts in order to make minimum payments.
Market forces collided and nearly took my bank account with it.
And the hole in the hallway of my parents' house was still there.
I patched it up last week, along with a smaller hole in the next room, one roughly the size of my father's fist.
---
"A house is something you own to live in," my friend said. "That's how my coworker put it, and I agree. She doesn't understand why all these people are complaining about their property value dropping. She said, 'You have a house to live in it.'"
"She's wrong.
"A house is an investment. Think about it. You don't know what could happen in the future. You could get laid off. You never know. Whatever extra money you make now can go towards your future. Towards that uncertainty. You can invest it or save it.
"If you're going to own property, it might as well be property that can provide you with two things: shelter and potential earnings. That's better than just having one of those things.
"Think about it. Everything you do in this life requires money. EVERYTHING. Your family can't bury you without money. And who's going to take care of you if something goes wrong? You know how employers are cutting retirement benefits these days. You think the government's gonna take care of you? No. Those f*ckers don't know what the h*ll they're doin'. You can't depend on anyone."
After a pause, he said, "Well, I'm not good with investments. You know that. I'd rather just own a home to live in it. I'm not good with that business stuff."
I sighed and stared at the ceiling of my rented studio, cell phone hot against my ear. "I'm not good at that sh*t either."
