The High Bar; November 1 2023
November! One of my least favourite months, generally speaking! It’s awkwardly cold, way too busy, and the seasonal depression hits hard.
But this November is going to be a weird one for me, personally, because my top surgery is coming up on November 7th! I have no idea what condition I’ll be in while recovering, so I may be unable to write or update my blog. I’ll try to keep y’all in the loop regarding how I’m doing, but we’ll see how things go!
I tried last month to get some advance work done on my NaNoWriMo project, since it’s my current horror novel and I was going to be writing it anyway. Unfortunately, I didn’t make nearly as much headway as I’d hoped. My morale’s been drastically low – I’m really feeling the lack of career progress on my shoulders.
So, this time, I’m gonna talk about dreams. Or, lofty goals, from most to least reasonable. Because why not! I have to remember what I’m fighting for, even though I think I might’ve spoken on this before.
At minimum, what I’ve been striving towards (mostly via writing, in the hopes of getting a literary agent and decent book advance) is clearing my debt. Back in my early twenties, I made poor financial decisions with the best of intentions; I bought a car, which wasn’t the wrong move at the time, but I also ‘loaned’ a lot of money to a friend in order to help them pay their rent for months. I dished out a lot of money on take-out or gifts for them, too, because I knew food was scarce and moods were low. So… yeah, good intentions, but bad results. My debt is pretty much insurmountable without one large whack of money to either pay it off entirely, or pay it down significantly so I’m not being gouged by interest. My debt has almost doubled over the years based on interest rates. It’s wild.
So, yeah. The bare minimum of what I want is to pay off that debt, because then my monthly expenses will go down so incredibly significantly… I’d be able to improve my kid’s quality of life so much, and my own. I wouldn’t have to constantly be making concessions or resigning myself to living in overdraft for parts of the month. It would change my life drastically but it’s still the lowest end of what I’m aiming for.
The second-tier goal? Repaying some serious kindnesses. While it’s not formally considered part of my debt, there have been people in my life who’ve given me gifts/loans of money while I was at my lowest and most desperate, or when taking life steps that just wouldn’t have been feasible without aid. I want to pay them back for that help in a tangible way. It only feels right.
Then we have third-tier dreams. Honestly, this one kind of varies pretty wildly, because the amount of money between second and fourth tiers is enormous. Fourth tier, spoiler, would be putting a down payment on a house. One near my kid’s school and friends, in an area that’s safe and walkable because I’ll always need to be near transit (I never intend on driving again). Considering homes in the city are like, a million dollars at best, my hopes are not at all high and I consider that among my loftiest of dreams.
But, back to third. It’d all depend on the amount of money I had, what I could reasonably save, what things would end up costing. It’s all quality of life stuff, or big experiences:
1. I want to be able to take my kid to Korea. Not until age, like… 12-13 minimum, so the memories would really stick, but I think it’s important to us both that she get to experience the country she gets half her heritage from.
2. Facial masculinization surgery. To be honest, the biggest source of my dysphoria has always been my face. I’d really like to be able to afford some plastic surgery to give me some more traditionally masculine features. I think I’d feel a ton more comfortable in my body and how I present if I could do that.
3. And, of course, basically any amounts of money that either wouldn’t cover the above (or, in a perfect world, would be left over), I’d put into life insurance and/or my child’s education fund. I’ve tried before to set up life insurance, but wasn’t approved for the packages I wanted because my financial situation is simply too poor. I’d love the psychological safety a proper life insurance plan would provide. Just… knowing she’d be okay, when I’m gone. I’ve already got an education savings plan for her that I contribute to monthly, so that’d kind of be the Last Thing on my priority list.
It often feels like I’m aiming too high. That even my most basic goal will never be within reach. There are some ways I might basically ‘luck’ into the money – while not actually luck-based, the outcome of my lawsuit following the SWAT raid can’t be certain, and I have no idea how much money I’d even really be looking at if I win. Then there’s my most dreaded way of coming into some money, which would be to inherit it… and needless to say, I really would prefer nobody passes away for a good long time.
The only way that feels even remotely within my own power is to work. To write. To find the right agent, to get the big book deal, and to finally feel some peace.
That’s why I never quit. Why I keep trying with other books, why I keep slogging through the querying trenches. Truth be told, I almost always want to quit and just… publish my works online for free, or something. Write for the joy of writing, again. Stop obsessing over agents and marketability.
I can’t do that, because if I do, nothing will change. I guess I’ll keep dreaming.