Recently I’ve been seeing quite a few people I follow on twitter announcing they are moving out of California, due to the myriad of reasons I’m sure we’re all familiar with: the absurd housing costs, quality of life problems, high taxation, and the insane amounts of traffic. I certainly don’t blame these people for moving away from the only State I’ve ever known, but rather I’m anxious, staring at the fact that I will also have to make the same move sometime in the future.
Especially if situations stay the same.
It’s a mathematical certainty that I won’t be able to afford to buy a house anywhere close to San Francisco, so when I do decide to do the proper adult thing and start a family, the only option would be to move away (Unless of course my future wife makes substantially more than I do). Potentially leaving to another State isn’t the hard part, however: the difficultly lies in employment, as in the headache of finding a new job at whichever new location.
The trouble is, I like my current job tremendously, and if SF housing cost is ignored, the pay is competitive, too. The benefits are great, and the job allows for the mythical work-life balance; there’s even a nice pension at the end, should I be so lucky to see this particular career path all the way through. Needing to give that up in order to move on to the next stage of life is a sobering thought indeed, if not cruel. Such is the situation here in the population centers of California: middle-class millennials like me are being utterly squeezed out, those of us who aren’t so fortunate to have housing bequeath to us, or to share with family.
I don’t have immediate plans to buy a house, so for the time being I can - and must - remain optimistic that things will change and somehow I’ll be able to stay and grow old in the city I grew up in. There’s no use to be stressed about it, even though honestly it’s a constant low-key worry at the back of my mind.
We shall see.
Rain makes all the colors better.