I'm Rich

I think I've mentioned in the past that I've relied on a trust fund on occasion. Most significantly, it paid for my college tuition, as well as living expenses and other educational fees, such as textbooks. The fund came from one of my grandparents who sold a house he'd bought for my parents, after they stopped living there. A quarter of the profits went to me, but it was put in a trust fund, which I wasn't allowed to receive until I turned 30, with the exception of education fees.

    I'm 31 now, and me and the lawyer in charge of things were talking about meeting up so that I could receive whatever I had left. Unfortunately, that conversation happened right before COVID-19 and the province-wide shutdown. It would be about seven months before we started talking about meeting again.

    I thought I had used up almost all of my share, but it turns out that because of some shrewd investing, I still had about half of my original amount.

    For the meeting, I had to go to Toronto, so I stayed at Lee-Anne's parents' place on a Thursday and got a ride in on Friday. Meaning, I got to hit two of Ontario's COVID hotspots over the weekend. I mentioned briefly that we were in the second wave of the pandemic in my previous post. This was announced nation-wide, and Toronto, Peel Region (which includes Brampton), and Ottawa were scaled back to a "modified Phase 2" of our recovery plan. Waterloo Region, where I live, is still in Phase 3-B for the time being.

     My brother and one of my Toronto aunts met me at the lawyer's office.  They weren't there for me, they had a bit of overlapping business.

    We had to sign the papers in the lobby. The one employee that was in the office had to move to a different room, and we had to lock the door behind us. Everyone had to wear masks, and there was a plexiglass shield between us and the lawyer.

    Despite exchanging emails with him regularly since college, it had only been a few weeks prior that I had heard his voice, when we spoke over the phone about meeting. This was my first time seeing him. Honestly, it had been my impression that this man had been hoping to retire since I first started communicating with him almost a decade ago, and that our family was sort of his "last mission". In my mind's eye, I was picturing someone who was kind of feeble and done with things. By contrast, he seemed surprisingly youthful and vital.

    After the meeting, we celebrated by going to a nearby Polish restaurant. All outdoor dining because it's Phase 2 there. Luckily, weather was good, and I got to eat some cabbage rolls.

    I'm not going to go into specifics about my financial situation. I know in the title I said that I'm rich. That's pretty subjective, and I think many people wouldn't find that was the case if they knew what I had. Still... I was doing a bit better than living month-by-month before this, and now I'm a lot more comfortable than I've ever been before.