Making 20 Year Decisions
It will take me longer than 20 minutes to write this one but it didn’t take more than 20 minutes to come to this 20 year decision. Laurelle and I were looking for a home in Austin at the end of 2021 (You might have heard but Austin is kind of hot right now…). Well after getting blown out of the water on a few offers of homes that looked like Dorthy’s Kansas shack we looked at each other and made a 20 year decision: Lets put our general disdain for suburbia aside, our rudimentary dismissal of Dallas to the side and lets move closer to family where we can raise our own family in a good house in a great neighborhood of Dallas. Sound good? Game plan on! Just like that, we made a 20 year decision.
Fast forward about four months and we bought the house, we moved in and we’re settling into our new life in Dallas - a city that Laurelle knows purely as a rather cookie cutter, albeit familiar immigration home and a city that I associate to homestead exemption acts and oversized steakhouses. Apparently there’s more to the city, we’ll have to find out. While this post won’t be about Dallas in general; I’ll have twenty years to cover that topic. This post is about priorities and thinking long term, or 20 years at least.
Yesterday, we were with an older couple who lamented that their late 20 year old son is in New York and loving every second of it. He has no plans on moving back they said. I was once that son. I too was loving New York and wouldn’t have traded it in for a winning lotto ticket. Then, everything changed, all at once, and that’s life. You fast forward through one chapter and you wonder, how did I get to this new chapter? You look at your current chapter and you wonder, wow I can’t believe I’m here. You over-estimate how much you can do in a year and you underestimate how much you can do in five. That’s how I feel right now. I can’t believe I’m here.
I’m actually here. I have an amazing wife. I have the cutest dog. I have a dream job. I have the most stunning house with a pool on a creek in a great neighborhood. I truly think I have it all. I only have one more material goal (many more actual goals) but I’m going to give that one some time to simmer so as not to spoil the perfection in front of me. It’s moments like this that I have to stop and write, and be thankful, because as Denzel Washington cautioned Will Smith “At your highest moments, that’s when the devil comes.” So devil, let me take this one in for now and revel in the joy before you throw me a curveball.
This house is a forever home. It’s big, it’s spacious, it’s new and its empty rooms beckon to be filled. This house emanates with memories yet to be created. This house was looking for a family of four but found a pair of two with plans of growth. The home is situated on a beautiful creek where you can hear the birds chirping in the morning. My mother in law saw the creek and before even stepping inside said, Eric will love this home. She was right. I love this home. After spending our first night in here, Laurelle and I looked at each other and said “it feels like we’ve lived here before.” While eerie to the sound, it is true - this house has a feeling of familiarity. That feeling was our future calling us ahead.
The thesis of moving closer to family was heartwarming in theory and even better in practicality. Ahead of our move we had a full time project management staff (aka my in-laws) overlooking the painters. My in-laws also helped coordinate our move in process, helping food shop, bring us food and other necessities as we were getting settled. If this wasn’t a preview to bigger responsibility sharing and helping hands, I don’t know what is. Our cousins up the road dropped off some much needed gadgets and tools to help with assembly and have let us know that they are at our command when we need them. They say it takes a village (to raise a family at least) and this feels like we’re at the beginning of the kibbutzim.
So while we don’t have kids and Laurelle and I both really don’t have an immediate NEED to be in Dallas, we both were thinking long term, 20 years out. I wrote about long term planning (specifically the five year plan) when I was on the plane moving to Los Angeles from NYC. That was only four years ago. A lot can change in almost half a decade and your priorities start to shift. Today, I’m thinking about my twenty year plan and it’s not a plan at all - it’s a picture frame. The picture frame still has the same background - the backyard by the creek - but the members therein likely have grown up a bit. Let’s see what memories we can create until then.