Notes 📍

I’m staring at my shiny new 2026 Ford F-350, and all I see is a countdown.

People raise an eyebrow when I say this is likely the last rig I’ll ever buy before I punch out from the state. To them, 2040 feels like a sci-fi movie. To me, it feels like next Tuesday. In fourteen years, I’ll be fifty-seven, backed by three decades of state service and a Tier 4 pension that says I don’t have to answer to anyone. If the math holds and the markets don’t implode, I’ll be sitting on a net worth that could buy a “vinyl-covered” life in the suburbs—the kind with the 72-degree HVAC, weekly trash pickup, and a porch cluttered with Amazon boxes.

But I don’t want the plastic life. I want the dirty life that smells a little like hog shit and burnt plastic.

While the rest of the world is busy paying for high-speed internet and utility bills that never end, I’m scouring listings on NY Land Quest and Christmas Associates. I’m not looking for a McMansion; I’m looking for the “backwaters.” I’m looking for a place where the only recurring fee is property tax and the only “smart” thing I own is the phone in my pocket to check the weather.

The dream is simple: fires and guns. Livestock that I’ve raised, hunted, and butchered myself. I want a life that isn’t wrapped in cellophane and sold back to me at a markup. I want pigs, goats, and maybe a few head of cattle on a patch of land where a burn barrel isn’t a legal liability and my constitutional rights aren’t up for debate.

Every time I fire up this truck to commute through the city, I feel the wear and tear—not just on the engine, but on the vision. Right now, every trip to the woods is a “burden,” a logistical dance of fuel costs and travel time. By 2040, I want to be in it. I want to trap and homestead full-time, trading the bus pass and the bike commute for a pair of hog shit-covered farm boots and a quiet morning somewhere far beyond the New York border.

Of course, fourteen years is a long time for things to go sideways. A market crash, a catastrophic wreck, or a literal bus with my name on it could end the dream before the first post-hole is dug. There’s also the nagging voice that says fifty-seven is too young to toss the hat in. Maybe 2041 will offer some “interesting opportunity” that keeps me at the desk for one more year of golden handcuffs.

But then I look at this truck again. I built my last camping rig fourteen years ago, and it feels like it happened yesterday. Time isn’t just moving; it’s accelerating.

Some people spend their lives buying things they’ll eventually throw away. I’m spending mine building a future where I don’t have to buy anything at all. 2040 isn’t just a retirement date—it’s the year I finally go home.