Better Off

In the news over the past week one question has been asked over and over again…are you better off today than 4 years ago?

Our first apartment as newlyweds
Burbank, CA
09/08

In the past four years M and I have been able to build a life we are proud of, a life we love, but it has taken a lot of patients and hard work.  Our first year of marriage wasn’t butterflies and rainbows.  We lived in a one-bedroom apartment sleeping on an air mattress for 9 months with no furniture besides a couch, our TV stand was a Rubbermaid container until a friend gave us their 1980’s hand-me-down, and a wall air conditioning unit, but it was ours and we couldn’t have been more proud.  

We didn’t move to LA with jobs, although we tired plenty.  Of course this was right when the economy crashed so we did odd jobs temping.  My favorite gig {sarcasm} was when I worked at a scrap metal yard answering phones and doing odd tasks.  At lunch I called my mom and started crying questioning if this was really the reason we were living in LA.  That was probably one of the lowest points of our journey.  Shortly after I got a call from a high class temp agency and a receptionist position opened long term.  I immediately said yes before even knowing what company it was with.  The company was Guess.  After 5 months of feeling like I don’t have a purpose I finally started to feel validated.  M was working for a company editing.  Things just started falling into place.

The only room in our apartment with furniture.  We had to paint because it was so depressing living there with nothing.

In four years we have made a life for ourselves and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Our journey has never been about material things {although a bed would have been amazing}, it was about doing something different.  Doing something we had always dreamed of when we would pass notes in the high school hallways or spent four years long distance because we knew there was a greater life ahead for us.  It was about believing in one another enough to take the risk. 

My hope is when I look back at this post four years from now I can be as proud of our accomplishments as I am today.  So mainstream media, yes we are better off than we were for years ago.