I am feeling horribly realistic these days.
To be realistic is to accept the trade-off between the size of my home and the neighbourhood I live in. That my best basketball (and dunking) days are likely behind me. To be aware of how many carbs are in a beer or sandwich. To hire employees based on conservative cashflows. To not invite people to my wedding that I’d like to. To have a big night once every couple of months. To focus on discounts when deciding where to travel. To look at my bank account (and Google Calendar) to decide when to travel.
When I graduated from university 10 years ago, I disdained Realistic. It was a tiny, avoidable iceberg on the horizon. Other people sailed there willingly, or Titanic’d into it, but not me. I had a plan: fly right over the iceberg by succeeding in business, working hard at my fitness, and being exceptionally fun and adventurous. Today, at 33, I am about to hit the iceberg.
A few things have happened.
I haven’t been as exceptional as I thought. I have failed in 2 of my 3 businesses. The third, while I love it deeply, pays me a salary comparable to what I’d make in the job market. Its day-to-day operations still rely on me. I’ve gotten, at different times, skinnier and chubbier than I’d like to be. I hurt my ankle most years. My circle of friends has shrunk, not grown. The list of adventurous things I’ve done recently grows smaller and smaller.
Life has been harder than I thought. Lily got cancer and then went back to school. COVID stopped me from moving and travelling. Friends moved away. Even family planning is harder—we haven’t had much success with IVF yet.
Things have gotten way, way, more expensive. I think about housing constantly. The cost of rent and ownership in Vancouver has almost exactly doubled in the past 10 years. Today, I heard about a friend of a friend getting outbid on a $5,000/month townhome rental. That’s insane. Food and other things have also gotten more expensive, so saving money is generally hard, but housing is the big one. Lily and I are ready to live in a home with multiple rooms in it, and we’re stuck.
It’s not just the costs of my ideal neighbourhoods like Kits and Mount Pleasant, either. It’s the backup neighbourhoods. In the back of my mind, I’ve always thought: “if I can’t make enough to live in Kits, I can always move back to North Van. It’s nice enough there.” But now, North Van is just as expensive as anywhere else. Backup-backups like Strathcona and Kerrisdale are the similar.
I feel like I’m getting priced out of my home and away from my family. Do people have a right to live where they grew up, to live near their family? I’ve never had to think about that question until now.
But other Canadian cities aren’t much better. Toronto is as costly as here and colder. It’s cheaper to live in Victoria, Calgary, or Ottawa—but not that much cheaper given what I’d lose.
When I hear myself talking about housing issues, I feel like a small man. They are the gripes of someone bound by their own lack. Of someone who thought they’d be further along by this point.
It doesn’t hearten me to know that much of this is out of my control, or that most people my age are dealing with these same problems. In fact, many would probably consider me on the right side of the bell curve for success, fitness, and adventure. I’m still constantly confronted with the differences between my expectations and reality. What I want—to live in a multi-bedroom home in a neighbourhood I love, to experience the thrills of athletic excellence, to regularly travel where I’d like and create new memories with my friends—isn’t impossible. But it isn’t realistic.
To deal with these feelings, I’ve come up with a pretty good new plan: I’m going to fuck off.
Lily and I are going to move to London. We’re leaving Realistic on this side of the Atlantic. This solves many of my problems. What’s more adventurous than moving across the world to the centre of travel and fun? What better place to make money than a global hub of commerce? How could I not be fit with all the free time I create from resetting my schedule? It will be just as expensive as here, but at least that’s expected—Canada’s prices are new, but London has been expensive since the bombing stopped.
Of course, this only defers the issue. In a couple of years, Lily and I will have kids, bringing new little icebergs into our family. We’ll want more space, to be closer to more family, to make more money. We’ll need to make more compromises; be even more realistic. It will be worth it, I’m sure, but it will create problems that the Overground line can’t solve.
So I have a couple of years. In that time, I need to get ahead of Realistic again by making a fuckload of money (and ideally, getting incredibly fit and making as many memories as I can). Or I need to accept that being realistic is just part of life for everyone. To be honest, I’m not sure which will be easier.