What a summer. There were trips to Chicago, Milwaukee, East Lansing, Grand Rapids, Las Vegas, Utah, Kansas City, St. Louis, Portland, Bellingham and twice to Kentucky. I put a ton of miles on my car and nearly another 1500 on rentals. I would love to have all of my summers look like this from now on if I could simply afford it. In a straight comparison with most people, I would probably qualify as underpaid, but I just like to think that I could get paid in time over the summer. If you take my salary and multiply by 1.5 to accommodate for the fact that I only work for eight months, it makes things look a lot better.
That said, the extra money that would come with a full twelve months of work would be nice. I see what my friends have and I know there's no way I could currently support a wife, kids and the mortgage on a $250,000 house. I get a little anxious about my car now too as its about at the mileage where my last car crapped out. Of all those things, I could probably afford one at the most right now. Thankfully, Indy is quite cheap and so my house won't be nearly that expensive. Someone could see my travels and think I've got a fear of missing out. Its not that. I see the things my friends have and its not that I feel like I'm missing out, but rather, I fear that I'm falling behind compared to all of them. I feel like some of the benchmarks of the early 30s (family and home) are things I should have by now. There is the obvious reason behind it as the vast majority of my friends didn't spend seven years in grad school making just enough to survive. I know I just need to be patient as these things will come. I should revel in the fact that I am doing exactly what I want to do and I am exploiting the fact that I essentially have summers off if I so desire. I get it, I really do. Its just hard for me to be patient, especially now that I have this massive list of places I want to visit that gets longer by the day.
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