Five Year Plan

Coming from a poor southern white trash family the future was a dark desolate place that you feared to tread. Hope cared not to shine in our direction. So it was best to keep our heads down and stay in our place, out of sight and out of mind. Though at age ten hope crashed the pity party and shipped our down trodden family off to a middle class living on an airbase in Georgia. As would be expected we all fought the change tooth and nail. Though it did afford us the first view of the well lit future that did not shine on the poor. Who would work the shit jobs if they knew they didn't have to? It was from that lofty perch that I found a skateboard, and a dream. I set my sights on a better life and never again looked back. Over a decade later I stopped to take a breath and realized I had reached my destination. Where to now? Best to make a plan...
Fearing the world would snatch my dream away at any time as the punchline to some cruel joke for which it had been building anticipation over the past fifteen years. I stashed away every cent I could scrap together. Depriving myself of all pleasures aside from the skateboard which had carried me to this pinnacle. All work and no play had built quite a nest egg, but what to do with the contents? Plan my retirement, with a five year ticking clock. I had already buried my nose in real estate as a frying pan for my omelette. So that was to be the start: Year One - buy a house with my savings, Year Two - harvest the equity and buy an apartment building, Year Three -repeat step two three more times while finding a wife with which to build a family, Step Four - retire with the woman of my dreams and build said family.
Year one went well. Found a lovely two story house on a bike path three miles from the ocean in Los Angeles. Year two was a bit of a set back due to having to refinance instead of harvest but year three found me right back on track buying a four unit building only two miles from the house in a blooming residential development. Real estate, that was the easy part. Women are far more tricky. After the first heart breaking potential wife disappointment and a good nose for the bubble about to burst in the market. I sold the house for more money than i could have imagined and restructured the plan a bit. Travel for a year and buy a bar on the beach and retire in Costa Rica. Wife is sure to follow.
Got close again with some slight adjustments. Bought beach front property and built a hotel, only in Nicaragua, not Costa. Found a beautiful woman and was set for retirement after a year of globe trotting with the soon to be Mrs Haney. Once again, however, a woman's inability to be honest and my unrealistic expectations got in the way.
This time I had not interest in restructuring any plan. It was party time! I buried my head in a bottle and almost five years later am just sleeping off the hangover. What to do now?...
Another five year plan is tempting, though I suspect retirement is a good long way off regardless of financial positioning. I do want kids and a wife, an open minded one would be nice. Though if there is one thing I know for certain, the world will do with you what it wishes. We are just along for the ride. So I will not plan, but I will pray, to the powers that provide each day. Pray for peace and pray for smiles. Pray for happiness as I pass the miles. Pray for dreams that may or may not come true but know that it is those dreams that carry me through.