All my words

i’m turning 25 in a couple weeks. i won’t stop getting older. less innocent. less beautiful. less new. less prodigious. less mature for my age. less promising. less fun. less valuable.   i won’t stop getting older. creepier. milder. sadder. more jaded. more alone. more like everyone else. more the same. further from the beginning. closer to the end.  

i sold this guy my car for $800. hood smashed open. i didn’t take the plates off. i trusted him because he looked like my dad. and because his facebook was full of pictures of him holding his newborn son.   there’s a lot of trust involved in buying or selling a used car. i bought the car 14 months ago from a guy named Juan, who was also a father, which is why I trusted him when he said the 99 accord was very well maintained throughout its life and should not give me any trouble. he was right — it didn’t. he had pictures of his kids in his wallet. he talked about how his daughter was in college. not to make me trust him, because he couldn’t not do it.   you’ve got to have some criteria for trusting people. being a parent is pretty decent criteria. it’s harder to get away with shitty things when you’re a parent. i can just tell your kids if you scam me. i’ll find them on facebook. parents are more afraid of their kids than of anyone else.  

How did that simpleton get so rich? Real Estate. Buy a place where people can live. Rent it out. Free money forever. Pay other people to manage the property for you. You pay a few people 60k a year. you pocket a few million. Rinse and repeat. Just sit on your ass and profit. The law protects you. Unless a great big asteroid comes down and destroys your property, you’re set for life.   You walk among the common folk, laughably wealthier, no one can tell the difference. They have no idea you make so much doing so little. You get to travel the world. You vlog with your family. You raise your kids — well. You’re a good dad. Your wife is beautiful and she loves you too.   You thank God for your inheritance and that you invested it in Real Estate like your old man told you to. That you never had to sit in a cubicle. That you never had to have a “career path.” That the city you chose to buy in remained attractive and the market just kept going up like everybody said it would. In the ...