I'm still working long hours, I feel underpaid, struggling to keep up with the rising bills and want kids but can not figure out how this is possible.
As I approach the big 30 my brother asked me how I'm feeling. So here are my thoughts.
In many ways I do feel like I'm getting old. There are signs, the belly got a little bigger, I'm driving slower, I enjoy and appreciate things I've never appreciated before like getting outdoors.
However, though I have a lot, I feel like I've not made the progress I would have hoped to make by this point in my life. I may not have had any goals written down but I had a slight idea.
I graduated from uni & obtained a reasonably good job in the industry I had hoped for. I've gained some experience. I'm serving in my church. I'm married & have a home. I even have a car I am delighted with.
So what milestones have I not overcome?
Through some bad decisions & bad timing I find myself in a kind of stalemate situation where I've not been able to progress for the last couple of years.
We brought a house in 2007 knowing that it would be a struggle at 1st but assumed it would get better as my earnings went up. With my income supporting the home Rachel could then ramp down work & we could concentrate on raising a family.
But things did not happen the way we anticipated. The world as we knew it changed. I didn't get the rise I hoped for & as part of the financial crisis energy costs have soared. Gas, fuel even food. The cost of living has risen faster than my pay increase. I find myself financially worse off now than when we originally brought the house.
So the obvious answer is to move. Sell the house for somewhere smaller. But that is not an easy thing to do. We brought our house for our family. It was to be our forever house. To sell up now would be hard as I'm also convinced that things will get easier. But I don't know how long this will be.
So here is the dilemma. Sell up and sacrifice the facilities we had hoped for to start our overdue family & write off the last couple of years and investment in our house or hang in there and wait till the economics change.
I know there never is a good time to start a family, and I know that when they come they will be our greatest source of joy. But I can't get past the massive loss, of both time & money which we won't get back, if we sell.
So here I am hitting 30 with just the one thing absent from my life. My yet to arrive children. That's my regret.
It isn't through lack of desire or planning. I put it down to bad timing & unforeseen circumstances and a lack of faith to just proceed with the family regardless of the consequences.
I do wish I had made some better decisions in the past but reflect on those decisions isn't going to help me now. For now, I (we) remain stuck until we make a decision.
