The More I Worked, the More Money I Bled Out
Time to Get Off the 24/7 Hamster Wheel
I am somewhat of an enigma; I realize that. I’m also chocked full of dichotomies.
For example, I consider myself a homebody. I highly value my comfort and my health. I love my standing desk where I spend day after day spinning yarns for the novels I write. I love cooking my food and popping supplements like they’re candy. I crave order and throughout life, have rarely been bored. There’s too much to do! I’m an extrovert in an introvert’s body. I’m passionate about so many different things that if I were to list them all here, you may consider me crazy. And that’s okay too because what other people think about me is their business and their opinion and they’re entitled to it.
Time to get to the point Kimberly Anne and so I shall. For the past ten years I’ve put down roots. Roots have always been important to me, yet they’re also something that has always terrified me. I don’t own a house, I’m no longer married, I have no kids. There’s a story in each one of these, but they’re not on point.
At my core I’m a traveler, a nomad, a journey-person who has never had the courage to leave my life behind and set out on an unknown adventure. I’ve traveled plenty in my 55 years of life, but as a born Californian I’ve never moved out of the State in which I was born. I’ve spent up to six weeks abroad as recently as last year. I’ve spent over a month each in China, in Paris, in London and flitting through Europe. I’ve been to 19 of the 50 states.
But for the past thirty years I’ve squelched my dream of traveling full time for a million excuses. When I have enough money/can afford it. When I’m ready to retire. When I find a partner who wants to travel with me. And then came Covid.
My day job for fifteen years has been in alternative healthcare and if I’m perfectly honest with myself, I haven’t wanted to be doing what I do for a long time now. At first I was trying to build up my business, working 15-hour days, 7 days a week. Have I mentioned that I’m a workaholic? No? Well, I am. I love working, it’s not a “job” for me and maybe that’s part of the reason I’m rarely bored. There was always a new goal to reach, a new monetary number to be made. Three and a half years ago I started hitting the monetary number. I made more money per year than I’ve ever made in my lifetime. The demand for my services increased, and I rose to meet them. During my first year of success, I saved and saved and saved. About two years prior to my first successful year at my day job, I also took on a second job — again workaholic.
The second job was something I’d wanted to do for my entire life, but it wasn’t anything that could or would earn money immediately. I wanted to be a novelist. To date, I’ve written 18 novels and published 11. I’ve also written and published half a dozen short stories.
When the end of 2017 came, I proudly handed my quickbooks over to my accountant with my head held high. I had scrimped as much as I could and saved thirty thousand dollars. To me, this was a small fortune. My accountant, with a straight face, said, “that’s great because that’s the exact number you owe the IRS.”
And so it went. The more I worked, the more I bled out. As soon as I was making extra money, my student loans started collecting a $1,000+ a month. So for the last three years I’ve been hemorrhaging money. Any penny I had left over went into publishing, which is not cheap! It costs $2,000 per book to self publish the way I want to self publish. You do the math.
When Covid hit and I got my stay at home orders, I embraced it. Writing full-time? Hells yes please! During the past year I worked from home, full time on my writing for 7 months and it was great, but not for the people out there suffering.
And being in healthcare, I know Covid is real and an enormous threat to every nation. But the PPP (loan), the money I earn from my books and a small amount of unemployment couldn’t hold me forever, so I went back to work.
The past months of working 12 hour days in a tiny windowless room, face to face, with people who were extremely immunocompromised was challenging. I helped as much as I was able and all my patients have been wonderful and grateful but I started dreading it so much I developed migraines. I’ve had this career for fifteen years, which is the amount of time in my past that I’ve rolled up the towel and started something new.
Over 90% of my patients are covered by health insurance and last June, 2020, the insurance company that pays my salary notified me that my services would be cut. This ended up not happening, but I was in limbo for several months. It was also the kick in the butt I needed for a huge life change.
Without an income I would have lost my apartment as I rent and do not own. So in two weeks I went from a successful entrepreneur to potential homelessness. When I told my partner a week prior to our year anniversary, he dumped me. I’m making it sound slightly more dramatic than it actually was, though I am also aware that my life is now a country song.
Where does this leave me, and why the hell am I writing all of this? Because change is the only constant in life. I can scream and cry and hold on to all I’ve built with torn and bleeding fingernails or I can let go and fall down into the dark precipice of the unknown.
I’ve chosen the latter. And thus the adventure of the unknown begins. My plan is to finally downsize — let go of that which I do not need by giving it away or selling it. I will get a tiny storage locker since I don’t know what the next year will bring. But for now, starting in August 2021; #vanlife. Achieving a lifelong dream, getting out of the tiny windowless rooms and out into the fresh air of life. With my constant canine companion.
