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Chuck Norris will be by to pick up your man card, too, after he gets done with the guy who said it was "too hard to learn how to drive a stick shift".
Good grief. Man up!
I'll admit, I didn't have much of a man card back in 2014 when I bought the car. I went to a dealership last night to look into what options I had to get rid of it (into something cheaper) and when I was uncomfortable with the deal, I walked away.
I'm currently 33M and have been in a deep rut for almost seven years now. It started when I moved back to my hometown of Oklahoma City in 2012 because of pressure from my fundamentalist Christian family. Then in 2013-14 I did ex-gay conversion therapy. Also in 2014, I was suckered into buying a car that I couldn't afford on a seven year loan. The sad thing is, the car was an impulse buy and wasn't something I really thought through. I've made a lot of dumb decisions over the course of my life but I think that one takes the cake.
However, once the dotted line was signed I either had to wait it out or default. There was a time when I legitimately considered letting it be repoed just to be rid of it. Instead, I did the responsible thing and have worked for years to get it paid off. It hasn't been without a cost though that is much bigger than financial. The car purchase has been a noose around my neck ever since 2014 and has basically trapped me in my current situation. It's now 2019 and I'm still burning through what I feel like should be the best years of my life, trapped in a small conservative town that I hate with a passion, trying to pay off a car I didn't even want. I have one more year to pay on the car before it's finally paid off and then I can move on. I've come to terms with my sexuality but I've realized that I can never be happy in a place like Oklahoma City. However, I MUST get the car paid off before I can move.
Bottom line is I made so many bad decisions that have led me to this point in my life and there's no easy way forward. This is all my own fault. Nobody forced me to move back to Oklahoma. Nobody forced me to sign the dotted line to buy this stupid car. Nobody forced me to conversion therapy at age 27...I could have stood up to my family and said I am who I am and that I'm not doing that. But, I didn't. I moved back to Oklahoma. I did conversion therapy. I bought the stupid car against my best judgment.
Now I'm 33 and feel like an 18 year old desperate to get away from his home town and start his own life. Yet, at my age, I should be well past this. I've lost almost a decade of my life. I look back at where I was in 2009 and I only wish that I could get back to where I was then. My current life that I'm living now, trapped in Oklahoma, depressed, single, lonely, and burning through life was my worst fear back then. It has become my reality.
I've got one more year to pay on the car and then I can finally be through of this. But seriously, these mistakes have cost me what should have been the best years of my life and this is a hard pill to swallow.
Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips lives in Oklahoma City. I'm sure he will help you.
It kind of reminds me of the time that Warren Zevon came out with "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me", and then Linda Rondstadt covered it a couple of years later. The second version got more attention than the first one.
Agree with all you said....except living in OKC has a ton of challenges. Its a world all its own full of cliques. Your advice on regret is spot on. I wish I could follow it myself.
Well, I'd personally choose not to live in OKC but my point was that plenty of people DO live there and quite happily so there's that.
Thanks, by the way. To me, regret is THE biggest theft of personal joy! I hates me some regret!
I just checked the KBB of my car and this might be an option. The car is worth about twice what I currently owe on it (at one point I was $15,000 upside down!)
However, I'll still need transportation. Do you think it would be worth it to trade it in for a cheaper car at this point?
Trade it in, get a cheaper car, then pocket the difference. That could provide you with some extra cash you could use to move away
I'm currently 33M and have been in a deep rut for almost seven years now. It started when I moved back to my hometown of Oklahoma City in 2012 because of pressure from my fundamentalist Christian family. Then in 2013-14 I did ex-gay conversion therapy. Also in 2014, I was suckered into buying a car that I couldn't afford on a seven year loan. The sad thing is, the car was an impulse buy and wasn't something I really thought through. I've made a lot of dumb decisions over the course of my life but I think that one takes the cake.
However, once the dotted line was signed I either had to wait it out or default. There was a time when I legitimately considered letting it be repoed just to be rid of it. Instead, I did the responsible thing and have worked for years to get it paid off. It hasn't been without a cost though that is much bigger than financial. The car purchase has been a noose around my neck ever since 2014 and has basically trapped me in my current situation. It's now 2019 and I'm still burning through what I feel like should be the best years of my life, trapped in a small conservative town that I hate with a passion, trying to pay off a car I didn't even want. I have one more year to pay on the car before it's finally paid off and then I can move on. I've come to terms with my sexuality but I've realized that I can never be happy in a place like Oklahoma City. However, I MUST get the car paid off before I can move.
Bottom line is I made so many bad decisions that have led me to this point in my life and there's no easy way forward. This is all my own fault. Nobody forced me to move back to Oklahoma. Nobody forced me to sign the dotted line to buy this stupid car. Nobody forced me to conversion therapy at age 27...I could have stood up to my family and said I am who I am and that I'm not doing that. But, I didn't. I moved back to Oklahoma. I did conversion therapy. I bought the stupid car against my best judgment.
Now I'm 33 and feel like an 18 year old desperate to get away from his home town and start his own life. Yet, at my age, I should be well past this. I've lost almost a decade of my life. I look back at where I was in 2009 and I only wish that I could get back to where I was then. My current life that I'm living now, trapped in Oklahoma, depressed, single, lonely, and burning through life was my worst fear back then. It has become my reality.
I've got one more year to pay on the car and then I can finally be through of this. But seriously, these mistakes have cost me what should have been the best years of my life and this is a hard pill to swallow.
Take care of yourself, respect your body with healthy food and exercise. Add those 8 years back. The recession would have sucked, anyway. Start anew in this better economy and truly believe that 30 is the new 20. You could go on for another 70 years!
OP, you need to be goal setting and quit looking back. You can't change your past, but your can direct your future.
Here is my advice. If you are in the last year of payments, then pay off the vehicle and keep it. A paid off vehicle is a good thing. You can funnel what you would be putting into those payments into savings for the future. Maintenance is usually cheaper than a payment. Keep this vehicle until it doesn't make financial sense to drive it anymore.
We don't know your profession. I don't know how easy it is to move into a new job in another state. Start looking now. Don't just limit yourself to Denver. I lived in the Tulsa area for a few years and loved it. I'm not sure OKC would have given me the same fuzzy feeling. Regardless, I assuming both Tulsa and OKC have comparable costs of living. My husband almost got transferred into the Denver area around 2011. The costs of living out there was outrageous compared to Tulsa. We would have had to have had a huge salary increase to maintain the same standard of living in Denver. That is something to consider.
OP, you need to be goal setting and quit looking back. You can't change your past, but you can direct your future. Go out and actively look for what makes you happy. You are the only person who can make that happen. Make a list of what you want. Look at what you need to do to achieve it. Have fun with it and make it an adventure.
Well, I'd personally choose not to live in OKC but my point was that plenty of people DO live there and quite happily so there's that.
Thanks, by the way. To me, regret is THE biggest theft of personal joy! I hates me some regret!
Thanks for this post and I agree, regret is the biggest theft of personal joy. This entire thing is rooted in regret. Regret over moving back to Oklahoma and submitting to what my parents wanted. I was 27 at the time. I should have been my own man and stood up to them. I didn't, and now almost a decade has gone by and I'm still trying to get back to where I once was. I think the only way I can let go of that regret is to be able to prove to myself I can move on, turn the page, and get on with MY life.
I really don't think I can live in OKC happily. At least not without a major change in attitude, which I would probably need therapy to achieve. Even then I'm not sure it's possible. Others who do live here happily, even those who may not jive with the dominant culture, don't have the history with this place that I do. OKC to me represents all of the pain I've experienced in my past. It's almost actually painful to live here. One thing is certain though. Having had to live in OKC for this long will make me really appreciate my next city in a way I maybe wouldn't have had I got off easy with maybe only a year or two stay here.
Also, Atlguy was right when he said that OKC is it's own bubble. It's a bubble that exists 30 years behind the real world or if you live in the "urban" core, maybe 10-15 years. It's a very backward place. The only thing it really has going for it is a low cost of living but there are other places that are cheap that are much nicer than OKC. Nashville and Charlotte come to mind or even one of the Texas cities (besides Austin).
Quote:
Originally Posted by zentropa
Oh dear, that thread. It seems not much has changed. OP...consider that. You need to try something else now.
I dug myself into a hole so deep that it's taking me a long, long time to dig myself out. I'm getting closer. Really all that is left at this point is saving up and getting out of OKC. I just used my existing savings to pay off my car.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarahsez
We don't know your profession. I don't know how easy it is to move into a new job in another state. Start looking now. Don't just limit yourself to Denver. I lived in the Tulsa area for a few years and loved it. I'm not sure OKC would have given me the same fuzzy feeling. Regardless, I assuming both Tulsa and OKC have comparable costs of living. My husband almost got transferred into the Denver area around 2011. The costs of living out there was outrageous compared to Tulsa. We would have had to have had a huge salary increase to maintain the same standard of living in Denver. That is something to consider.
OP, you need to be goal setting and quit looking back. You can't change your past, but you can direct your future. Go out and actively look for what makes you happy. You are the only person who can make that happen. Make a list of what you want. Look at what you need to do to achieve it. Have fun with it and make it an adventure.
Yeah I'm not limiting myself to Denver. It's my first choice but I'm thinking about other options as well. I really couldn't do Tulsa because it's still in Oklahoma but I do think I'd like it better than OKC. OKC just isn't my kind of place. Never has been and I don't think it ever will be.
The reason it's so hard for me not to look back because I knew this would be how things could end up before I made the decisions that got me here. I basically made my worst fear back in 2011 turn into reality.
Anyways, I think I'm setting the goal of being out of OKC, provided there isn't a major change in my circumstances, by next April. I'm going to do it one way or another. Even if I just have to move to Dallas..I'm getting out of here by April 2020.
I started making changes in 2014...very slowly and very painfully. I quit conversion therapy when they tried to get me to do an exorcism. Two sessions earlier they told me that anybody who voted for Obama could not possibly go to heaven. I started by resisting my parents a bit more and making friends outside of the church (though I was very cautious). I got into a lot of fights with my parents whenever I would do something they thought I shouldn't or show sympathy towards progressive causes. And after everything I had done for them, they had the nerve to tell me I didn't listen to them or take their advice.
I moved out of the place they picked for me into my own place in central OKC, which has given me a more room to be myself. I started restricting their access to my social media. I stopped going to church after the 2015 same-sex marriage decision. I gave it one more try a year later and then decided I was done. By 2017, I was ready to crack open the closet door. Last year, in 2018, I finally left my online ex-gay support group.
I had a relationship that lasted from last summer until a couple of weeks ago, which was a great experience and now I know a lot more about what I'm looking for in a potential partner. I just paid off my car so now I just have to save up and move. I need to accept, as hard as it is, that it's probably not going to happen until 2020 unless there's a significant change in my circumstances.
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