"Joyride" over!

OK, wrong word. It's been nothing as exciting or pleasurable as a "joyride" for the past 2 years since Covid/Wuhan started. Rather, it's been relatively "calm" and "pleasant." For the most part, I've liked my life for the past 2 years.

After I quit my former (State) job in October of 2019, I then did low-paying temp work until I was hired, just weeks after Covid lockdowns, in April 2020 by my current company. For the past 2 years, I've been making a very good salary while being able to stay home, AND while having a cheap Austin rent for a 1200-sq-ft apartment---"cheap" by former Austin standards, NOT by standards since the rent explosion after 2019 or so...

As of today, the bubble has burst. Alas. Got 2 e-mails. The one from work said that we're going back to in-house work as of March 30. The one from my apartment manager said that my rent is going up from $1377 to $1600 per month as of May 6. (When I moved in, in April 2017, rent was $1275. In 2019, raised to $1350. In 2021, raised to $1377. Thought I was on a good path!)

Today I did searches on Craigslist and Zillow, and there's nothing better out there. Any move I made would be completely lateral, and still paying either $1600 or $1700 per month---for a crappy house/duplex either far south or far north. Or if an apartment more central, like where I live now, then 650 sq-ft instead of 1200 sq-ft for the same price (and no one wants 5 cats).

Guess I'll stay where I am, and tread water. Kind of depressing after thinking I have a "high-paying" job. Thing is: I'm not ever going to make much more in salary than I'm making now. But it seems like Austin rents are only going to skyrocket. (Why, though? When I lived in Weehawken, New Jersey, from 2008 to 2010, only a 15-minute bus-ride into New York City through the Lincoln Tunnel, I paid $1550---but it was a beautiful 2-bedroom Edwardian duplex, only a 1-minute walk from the Hudson River with a view of the NYC skyline. And I would walk to the supermarket and sandwich shop and pizza shop. Where I live now is a 1978 ground-floor apartment in Austin with a view of nothing. And the closest things on Burnet Road are the corner gas-station that sells my beer and several garages across the street.)

For the past couple of years, I used to think: "Well, I'm not exactly where I want to be, but at least it's comfortable..." (Both job-wise and apartment-wise.) I'd say this was a crossroads, but it's really not. "Crossroads" imply a choice of some sort. I can't afford to go anywhere else or to be in a better place. I'm completely stuck exactly where I am.

NOTE: Many people in their 50s, like myself, might hope for a legacy from their parents... My 80-something mother, for example, has a house in Austin, in a trendy subdivision. Back in 2017, she told me that she would leave me the house when she died, but that I had to share ownership 50/50 with my brother. (He's had his own home with his wife for the past 20 years; he doesn't need another. I refused that "deal." So I ain't getting a house!)