Suburban Stasis
I’ve lived in my home in suburban St. Louis for 33 years.
We moved there when I was nine. I came back to this house for holidays and summers throughout college. I lived in the house more than once between jobs and between moves. My parents moved out in 2014 and I started renting it. I bought the house from them in 2021.
I didn’t anticipate moving away from it until at least Chick was done with high school in 2031.
It’s not that I’ve never lived in other areas— it just wasn’t for very long. I bounced around a bit until I moved back to St. Louis in 2010, freshly graduated with a masters degree. I was $30,000 in debt for my undergrad and masters. It was the peak of the Great Recession and no one was hiring. My ex, TV and I moved in with my parents to that childhood home for six months while job searching. My ex fixed parking tickets with his shiny new law degree and delivered pizzas so we could scrape by.
The suburban house has been my home base for the last 33 years.
Two things happened this summer:
1) I did an in depth personal budget and promptly burst into tears.
Based my calculations I was going a little deeper and deeper into the red every month. My tiny nest egg was depleting faster than I ever could have predicted. I had a good grasp on my monthly expenses— it was the emergencies that were killing me. Medical bills. Car trouble. Busted pipes. I didn’t have any wiggle room for those things, plus other pieces were adding up. Car insurance for TV, debt from my divorce, the rising costs of everything. Something had to give.*
2) My ex moved into our kids’ school district.
I always swore that TV and Chick would go through the same school system as long as they were happy and thriving. As a kid, my family moved a lot prior to settling in St. Louis— my father was in the military. My divorce was finalized in early 2025 and I anticipated living a normal and boring suburban life for the next six years.
Suddenly I was no longer tethered to my home. Staying there was suddenly completely optional. Despite my immediate panic after I did my budget, I forgot a very obvious piece of information: Dove and I could have figured out an equity split for the house and we could continue living there, if we wanted.
But it was like a door that had opened in my mind, one I hadn’t even known was closed. Dove and I could move. The constraints where mainly logistic: how much could we afford, how far from work and children was too far.
It was exhilarating and terrifying to be on that brink of change. It is power to ask:
What do I want?
*Side note: I find myself embarrassed about finances. I kind of assume everyone else has it figured out and I’m just an idiot— I didn’t handle a lot of the finances in my marriage and its all a learning curve. I should give myself the benefit of the doubt: 29% of people are living from paycheck to paycheck right now. I still doubt myself. On paper, I think I’m solidly middle class: I have a masters degree, a higher level job with a nonprofit. Shouldn’t I be doing better than this?**
**Further side note: Even in complaining about this and admitting to embarrassment, I know I’m incredibly privileged. I’m a bitch with a 401K and health insurance. I can afford to go on a domestic vacation once per year. Who the hell I am to complain? No wait, this is my blog. I can complain if I want.
