Mr. Hutch and I are walking a pretty fine financial line these days, due to financing the building of our rental suite with the equity in our home. I found myself thinking the other day about my financial past and what I might have done differently had I known then what I know now.
I know. Like grey hair and back pain, this is sure sign that I am old.
When I was 23 and in my final year of university, my father died suddenly. My brother and I inherited a significant amount of money. This had a huge effect on my life for the next few years, and the consequences of the decisions I made then are still with me today.
The first thing I did with the money was probably smart: I paid off my student loan. With one cheque, my $12,000 debt was gone. It was my first and only payment on the loan. The enormity of this did not escape me at the time. I felt very fortunate on the one hand to be able to do this, and yet that it was at the expense of having my father meant it was bittersweet.
I had a bit of bad luck when I graduated university. I was all set to start working for one of my favorite professors in his lab. Just before I began though the job fell through, and along with it my reason to move into the apartment I had just rented downtown. On the upside, I suddenly found myself with no commitments and lots of cash in the bank. An enviable position to be in.
This is where I wonder if I could have made some better choices. I moved back home to mom, and basically had the kind of summer you have before you start your first job (which for me was 10 years earlier). I had a couple of other friends who were recent university graduates and in the same boat as me. We dubbed ourselves "team unemployed", and we made the most of that summer. We camped, we swam, we stayed at one guy's parent's summer home in the Gulf Islands. We drank beer and sat in the sun and watched seals swim in the harbour below. It was pretty great, and I still think of that summer fondly. One smart financial move I made at that time was to invest with a developer friend and build a spec house with my brother. We sold that house for a profit of around $20,000, without really lifting a finger. Not doing that several more times is one regret I have. I did look for work in my chosen field of wildlife biology all that summer though. Jobs were notoriously hard to come by in my field at that time, especially ones that paid more than a pittance. I was apparently "this close" to landing what sounded like an amazing job with a well-respected research institute in Ontario. Had I been chosen for that job and had I picked up and moved across the country that summer, I wonder how different my life would be now? Would I have met Mr. Hutch, had the Hutchlings? Would I have found my way back to the west coast, where my heart is? I'll never know the answers to these questions of course, but I have to imagine I wouldn't be where I am now.
After that summer turned to fall and still no biology job was forthcoming, I took a few internships in the hopes of beefing up my resume and eventually landing a paying job in my field. My inheritance subsidized a trip to New Zealand to study bottlenose dolphins that fall and winter (with a side trip to Fiji tagged onto the end of the internship) and a stint around home banding hummingbirds in the spring. Later that year I took off to Africa, Australia and Indonesia to travel for a while. When I returned, I took a position banding migratory songbirds in Oregon. All of these were incredible experiences, and I don't regret any of them. Had I not inherited that money, I wouldn't have been in the position to take these no- or low-paying, yet incredible jobs or take the trip that was purely for pleasure.
In fact, it was that final job in Oregon that sort of set me on the path that led me back to Victoria, and to my life today. I loved fieldwork, and intended to keep trying to make a go of becoming a professional biologist. Until one day when a realization came to me, crystal clear. I can picture now in my mind exactly where I was (walking along a trail beside a stream towards one of my mist nets), what I was wearing (pink tanktop, cargos, binoculars) and how the sun was shining directly overhead. And suddenly I just knew, without a doubt: this wasn't the life for me. It had a lot to do with my boss that summer, who lived and breathed ornithology and didn't care if he ever did anything else. He was willing to live in his car or couchsurf, going from short-term seasonal contract to short-term seasonal contract. And meeting him, I just knew that I didn't have that in me. I wanted a relationship someday, and to put down roots somewhere. I really just wanted to sleep in a bed that belonged to me, something I hadn't done at that point for a long time. I decided then and there that I would move back to Victoria at the end of that summer and try a new track.
I took a bit of a winding path once I was back in Victoria, but eventually it led to the decent-enough paying government job I have today. I put the final chunk of my inheritance down on a house with my brother and sister-in-law. That proved to be a pretty fateful decision as it was because of that house that I met the then-single tradesman named Mr. Hutch. I even made a tidy profit when they bought me out so that Mr. Hutch and I could buy the house we live in today.
So really, there not much point in wishing I had done things differently. Sure, I could have invested the money smarter or begun building my real estate empire. But oh did I have fun. I saw a good chunk of the world, grew up a bit. I still don't really know what I want to do with my life, but I'm happy with where I am and what I have. I think my father would be pleased to see what he afforded me.
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