T-24

I have a small desk calendar at work. It's one of those triangular ones where you can see the same month on either side.  On the front, I've noted things like doctor's appointments and holidays and dates when coworkers won't be in.  But on the back, in secret, the countdown is on.

My last day of work will be April 8th. This date was chosen way back in December, when my wife Kate and I decided this would be the year to put our scary writing plan into action. On my first day back at work after the holidays, I uncapped my pen and, working backwards, I noted my "days left" on each square of the calendar. Yesterday's square told me I have 24 days left to spend at this job.

It's still weird to think about. I've spent the last two months alternating between being excited and scared. I want the fear to go away so I can be happy and positive and confident. My current job has come up with new and unusual ways to suck over the years, but it's also granted me a steady income. The pay is certainly nothing flashy, but it's still infinitely better than nothing at all, which is an actual possible reality of this new path.

Kate assures me that, even if I don't make money writing, this is still a good move for us. I'll be keeping the household clean and calm, and I'll be preparing (mostly) nutritious and affordable meals for us from real ingredients. We'll both feel better when running a household is no longer an endless, overwhelming chore shared by two introverts who both work full time and use way too many dishes. This will be a positive change for us in all ways but one: money.

Since deciding to move to one income, we've been carefully tracking our monthly spending. We've created a budget that seems reasonable to us. If we stick to it, we'll be able to manage on Kate's monthly income plus about $300. That extra money will come from my savings account (my half of our abandoned wedding fund).

According to the numbers, we can do this. By the time I quit, we'll have enough saved to live for at least a year as a single-income couple, and that's without having to sacrifice our summer trip to Nova Scotia. Our emergency fund will help us with any unexpected expenses that crop up, and our tax return will pad things even further. We can definitely survive on one income, at least in the short term. Of course, the plan only works if Kate does.

Throughout our relationship, Kate has always earned more money than I do, and that gap only widens with time. She receives regular raises and substantial bonuses, and she's slated for a promotion this year. On the flip side, my (small) yearly raises dried up once the new owners took over, and my annual gift card "bonus" dropped from $250 to just $50. Business kind of screeched to a halt with the change in management, and it has yet to properly recover. I spend hours each week scrounging for work to fill my days. There are no promotions to apply for, and I'd be laughed at if I asked for a raise, considering how little actual work I do lately. My job is a dead end. Worse than that; I actually feel like I'm going backwards.

Still, it's hard to feel completely comfortable letting Kate take on the brunt of the money-making responsibility. We joke about me being a "kept woman," but I feel guilty at the idea of not contributing my share. We talk about this a lot, and Kate always assures me that this change will not make her life any harder. She'll be doing the same job as before; the same amount of work as before. Plus she'll be coming home to a clean house and a home-cooked meal each day. She assures me that the trade-off is more than fair, but I still worry.

What if she resents the fact that I get to stay home and write while she has to drag herself to work? What if she wishes we didn't have to be so strict with the money? What if she regrets encouraging me to do this?

We're not going to know how it feels until we've jumped into the new reality, and by then, it will be too late to back out. I dread the idea of having to take another unsatisfying job because we don't have enough money to live the way we want. My current job is not perfect, but it has its comforts. It's familiar. Better the devil you know, right?

And this, right here, is why I so rarely take chances in life. I hate not knowing how things will turn out. That's why I've stuck with this job for nearly five years; because it's not ALL bad. But maybe I need to expect more from myself and my life. Maybe the fact that a job doesn't make me actively miserable on a daily basis is not a reason to cling to it forever.

It's human nature to worry that an action may turn out to be a mistake. But I'm starting to think that doing nothing was my true mistake here, and that maybe this leap of faith is the way to correct it.