05 Jan Starting Over: Letting Go of the American Dream

January 4th, 2025. A new year is supposed to bring new beginnings, but for me, it’s brought the same old weight I’ve been carrying. I didn’t expect my depression to hit so hard, so quickly. But here I am, staring down the reality I’ve been avoiding for far too long.

For over two years and three months, I’ve been unemployed. It’s been a slow, agonizing process of realizing that everything I worked so hard for, everything I was told would lead to success, has only left me drowning. Credit card loans? Let them go. That happened in October. College loans? I held on longer than I should have, trying to stay responsible, trying to cling to this illusion that they were worth it.

But today, I’m letting those go too.

These fucking college loans.

I went to school because I believed the lie, we’ve all been sold: that education is the key to opportunity, to stability, to a future that feels worth living. I thought by now I’d be a director, a VP, hell, bare minimum a senior manager. Instead, I’m here, with nothing to show for it but debt and disillusionment. The American Dream? It’s not just dead, it never existed for people like me. And I don’t know why I kept believing, even after I stopped believing in capitalism itself.

I woke up today feeling suicidal. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, that’s the reality of hitting rock bottom and then realizing there’s an even deeper bottom beneath you. It’s exhausting. It’s relentless. I turn on the news, and it’s not just the state of this country that disgusts me, it’s realizing this is what it’s always been. I can’t do it anymore. Y’all can have this shit.

My new goal? Leave. Leave this country the first chance I get.

First step: renew my passport. Then, figure out what to do with my cat. Do I bring him with me? Do I rehome him? My heart says he’s my world, but my reality says I’m not even sure I can take care of myself anymore, let alone him. It breaks me to think about it.

I’ve thought about teaching English abroad. Scratch that, I don’t want to teach English abroad. But what are my options? I don’t see any other doors opening for me right now. I haven’t lost hope in my businesses or my creative endeavors, I’m still working on them. But I’m tired of trying to make them work in a country that’s done nothing but take from me. Maybe I’d be happier doing this somewhere else. Somewhere far away.

So, that’s the plan. Spend the next few months figuring out how to land a job teaching English, or something else that gets me out. When I leave, I don’t plan to come back. Some of you will never see me again. But none of you read this blog, so you probably won’t even know I’m gone.

I don’t want this post to come off as purely negative, it’s not. I see this as the next stage of my journey. My Digital Nomad journey. It’s not the one I thought I’d be taking, but it’s the one I need right now. Sometimes, letting go is the only way to find a new beginning.