The Rent Strike-Thru

What do we do when we feel stuck? Trapped, stagnant, like we’re just treading water? Do we simply accept our fate? Bow our heads in acknowledgement of our defeat and carry on? Maybe it’s the caged animal in me, but that’s never been my style. Never one to bow, never one to yield. Not now, not ever.

This is what I did.

The end of winter, 2023. I was overworked, ate up with stress, and just couldn't seem to catch up. I was working more than I felt was natural for a diurnal being, the typical carrousel for someone in the nightlife industry: work, sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat. Little time was left between twelve-hour shifts for any personal downtime – errands, writing, exercise. I’d given myself up to the grind, and I began slowly dying. My health began to wane, both mental and physical. I was working just to survive, pumping all of my earnings into bills, rent, groceries. Inflation was just the rotten cherry on top of an already unpalatable sundae. With what little cash I had left, I luxuriated in the idea of a vacation – but my schedule wouldn’t allow it.

So I quit.

Without anything else lined up, I gave two weeks’ notice to the busy bar where I spent ninety percent of my waking hours. Just having a last date of employment felt like breathing fresh, clean oxygen after months of inhaling mustard gas. A weight had been lifted.

To some, the idea of leaving a job without another promising offer would be the stuff of panic attacks and newfound insomnia. Not so for me. A bartender with seventeen years’ experience and lots of industry friends in my city, I didn’t sweat it. I didn’t want to sweat anything ever again. So I let the anxiety of an uncertain future roll off my back, and I started to think about what I really wanted.

Decision time came a-knocking more urgently than I’d expected with acceptance to a graduate program I had chosen for its course list and affordability. Finally – some good news. While I was excited to take this large step toward personal betterment, the reality quickly hit me that I wouldn’t be able to afford tuition while also paying exorbitant rent and all the other bills that come with adulthood. I did the math on a yellow legal pad, scratched out a column list of expenses, and began to strike through the ones I could realistically do without. There they were: streaming and internet subscriptions, gym and yoga memberships, rent…

Rent.

In 2023, my rent was $1,600 for a one-bedroom apartment in a convenient and fairly central neighborhood in my city. I had chosen it for its proximity to my job – the job I had just left. Immediately, this largest expense seemed the most unfair, the most frustratingly inflated, and therefor the most removable.

So on my yellow legal pad, I scratched a heavy line through that one word – rent. I reworked the list, recalculating what my new expenses would be if I didn’t have this monthly burden looming over my finances. I liked the new math. A lot. The only thing left to do now was decide not only where to live, but how to live.

I was changing my trajectory. My sights weren’t trained on anything specific yet, but I was scanning. It was a scary search – nauseating even – but I felt the burden of stagnation lifting already.