Growing Older

Dirty-Nine: Or I was so much older then, I’m younger then now.

After all these years I still really like that Bob Dylan song, that the Byrds gave such a rocking melody to. Maybe not the most up-to-date song ever played on the radio, but then again I don’t really follow commercial radio stations and their endless promotion of violence and pornography, DWI lawyers, laundry soap and the government workers. Do anybody even listen to the radio anymore, or is just Mp3s they got decades ago from the Napster and it’s GNU equivalent? I do sometimes listen to the BBC or NPR in the morning for news bulletin, but I can’t stand the endless whining and boosterism of preferred liberal or conservative causes of the reporters.

Truth be told, dirty-nine feels no different then 38. But it comes with the satisfaction of knowing that you have made it professionally, that you are a valuable member of the team where you work, where my years of experience have paid off. Where the years of working tough roles with difficult clients and long hours, landed you the nice corner office with the brass lamp and wooden desk, a good salary and a fairly demanding job that requires me to think, be on my toes and make sure the information that my unit puts out is the best it can be. I might just be the deputy director, in the smaller office with the mismatched furniture, and less fantastic views, although least I’m no longer the most tenderfoot of directors agency-wide. There is always room for growth, although I guess it slows as you reach higher up. Of course my standards are relatively low – remember I grew up in a neighborhood where most people dropped out of high school, raised pigs and cattle to survive, lived in trailers and burned whatever they needed to keep warm or get rid of.

Many people who make the kind of money that I do might go out and buy fancier clothing, a new car rather then my increasingly rust-bucket big jacked up truck, a nicer apartment or house. They might go out and get a television or have internet at home. Or even turn the heat up above 50 or 55 degrees in exceptionally cold weather. They might have air conditioning or home internet. They might try to escape the self-imposed poverty, where I find myself still to this day essentially living paycheck-to-paycheck, where my bank balance at times reaches into the single-digits above the minimum, or even temporarily falls below. Where I try to avoid all unnecessary expenses, such as driving, buying expensive food in packaging I have to pay to throw away at the transfer station, or wasting money heating my apartment and planet too much. My poverty is because I’m committed to a better tomorrow, saving the maximum for retirement and future investments.

I am pretty much aware I am at my mid-point of my life, maybe even somewhat past the mid-point. After all, there is no guarantee of tomorrow, I have no idea if I will die crossing the street tomorrow, or have a heart attack and die at age 92. But 78 seems like a reasonable number, if you look at the statistics for somebody my age, my gender and my community. And I think the best is yet to come. Living frugally right now, means my expectations for the future are low, and even if the investments and savings don’t all work out in the end, I already know how to live with less, on a life with a much lower paycheck then what I am earning now. And if I die tomorrow or next week, well I look it at this way, I didn’t blow the money on a bunch of garbage that has to be thrown away the next day or in a few years.

One of things I’ve learned about buying shit is it never is really great. Most things break quickly, wear out and have to be taken to the transfer station to be hauled off to the landfill. Advertising is a lie. But dreams are always free and they don’t wear out. A focus on the future, saving and investing feels so good, as a dream and an idea can not break in one’s mind, as it is just a dream. Playing on the Zillow house shopping app, or #ManureMafia Tiktok is free and doesn’t wear out like physical shit. I have unlimited bandwidth and my phone is cheap. The number in bank and investment accounts are good to look at, even if in many cases they only exist on the screen, they can’t be easily converted into actual stuff, at least in the short-term without a big tax penalty, assuming the markets aren’t in the crapper. Not because I value money for the sake of money, or because it can buy a lot of shiny bling, but it certainly can at some point buy land, livestock and implements.

I look around and it seems like a lot of people have things much nicer then I have. They take fancy vacations, they have fancy houses and nice toys. A lot of people like resorts, I prefer drinking cheep beer up in the woods, having fires where I can burn sometimes sketchy shit while listening to country music 50 years out date. Okay, I have my big-jacked up truck with the camper shell, but that’s mostly my one guilty pleasure, probably that I wouldn’t do again. Many of the big spenders though probably make less money then I do at this point. But most people who earn good money are throwing it away — they have a full garbage can every week — while I have a better chance of having a secure future, even if things start to go terribly wrong in the world. And even if I don’t make it to that better tomorrow, at least I won’t have a wasted it all on bullshit and trinkets. If I were to spend my hard earned on bull, I’d at least want a manure spreader and hay equipment. As the Love of the Land Youtube channel puts it, cows make manure which makes more hay and manure. The truth of the midlife crisis when yo realize much of what people value smells like fermented silage.

Less then one year when I am 40 years old. It feels like I was just in my 20s a few years ago. But how fast we all go grow old. I am sure the 40s will be a time of change in my life. I probably can’t live forever in my dumpy old apartment I’ve had since graduating from college, it just keeps falling apart further and further, each winter a little more drafty and each summer more moldy. Heck, even my landlord is getting quite elderly, he might sell it to a developer who knocks it down, replacing the converted-horse barn apartment with asbestos siding for high-end condos. My slummy apartment seems so out of place in a neighborhood where they keep building vinyl-sided crap that yuppies dig. But it fits me well, with my hillbilly small town roots. Yet, I want to own my own land eventually, and maybe that will happen during those years. And not in the suburbs or with vinyl siding, which is root of all evil. I’d rather have goats fertilize my lawn then chemicals.

Maybe in my forties I’ll try out new career opportunities or even consider moving out west where I can burn whatever and own whatever guns I want, although it will be hard to pass on my job that right now pays such good money, and the work is rewarding and fun, even if at times the hours are long. But I’m well aware things change, and they don’t last forever. I can’t take the world of today forever for granted. That’s in part why I continue to expand my skills, learn more about data science, Python, R and GIS mapping — all good skills to build on top of my professional management, communication, research and political skills I build every day at work. Certainly having some money saved up and a frugal lifestyle opens up opportunities not otherwise available to somebody who actually lives paycheck to paycheck.

Who knows, a lot could change tomorrow or more likely not. By building a solid foundation for my future, and being content with life now without a lot of shit, seems like a reasonable plan as the days of the year tick away towards forty. The truth, is 40 isn’t that far off, especially when I think back that it’s been 21 years since I graduated from High School and a decade and a half since college.

Indeed, my hope is be mostly retired by 55, which is a little over 15 years away, to focus on my own land, my off-grid property, getting to know the earth and trying to protect myself from the disorder that is certain to happen with accelerating climate change. Our warming climate is not just bad news for our planet, it’s likely to make our country even more disorderly and divided. But that’s a thought for another day!

So yes, Happy Birthday, Dirty-Nine to Me!

No cake or sweets for me today, and it’s darn cold in my hoodie in my apartment, but I am fairly content with the way things are today, and know the best is still yet to come. Or if it’s not, I’m still satisfied with the way things are today, even if there is a rust and dust around my apartment, and it’s darn cold.