A lot is changing in our home right now. In the past few months there have been a lot of events that slowed us down and made us think about where we were headed. My job has become increasingly unstable. I have started looking into grad school and Riley is nearly finished with his Masters. Last month the man turned 30 and I am not all that far behind.
I have been increasingly discontent with life. I have been beating my head against a wall trying to find full time work. Each day without full time work (and a full time paycheck) I have been growing more impatient and more miserable. Envy has taken root in my life. It is difficult not to look around and want not only what everyone else has now, but what my family had when my parents were my age. By the time my parents were our age they had a new, large home sitting on three acres in the country, a full house of children, and took regular, lavish vacations.
The ball started rolling this past week when we decided that becoming vegetarians was not only a health choice we needed to make, but a moral choice we feel we must make. I usually dislike using "we." However, the changes that are starting to happen in my life are tied to the collective adventure we are taking together. During the conversations we have been having I realize how lucky I am to be with someone who not only will humor my "experiments," but has the same passions and values that I have. I am even more lucky to have found someone who patiently waited for me to grow into who I am. He never pushed me so far that I closed my mind to the presented ideas, only far enough to force me to look at my beliefs and examine my discomfort.
I am a documentary nut. I will watch just about anything in that genre. I have watched two hour long documentaries on things like pencils, apple juice, and jelly beans. Netflix recently added Tiny. It is a documentary on a guy who builds a home the size of a parking space. I sat down to watch it partially fearful that my husband would jump on the idea and partially with a morbid, freak show mentality. I wanted to view it in anthropological kind of way I suppose. I merely wanted to learn something I did not know before. There is this scene where he goes to a family dinner and his family is giving him excuses as to why they could never live like that. Hearing the materialistic lies we are all socialized to believe spoken aloud in plain terms I realized how vapid and worthless the arguments against simple living is.
Everything seemed to fall into place this weekend. I am frustrated with my life because I am making plans to work jobs I do not want, to buy things I don't need, to impress people I don't know. More has not been enough. I kept comparing my life to the life my parents had at my age. I saw all of the things I did not have and did not realize the value of the life I have. What I want out of life is not what they wanted. That was the first epiphany. When I got married I bought into the "life script" I was supposed to have. In my mind we were supposed to be working on home ownership, 2.5 children, and a 401k. We were supposed to have nice cars in the driveway and dress professionally. None of those things brings my heart any passion. I want to travel and see the world. I don't want that dream to be abstract or for retirement either. I want to travel now and grow as a person because of it. I want to leave very little impact ecologically on this earth. Lastly, and most importantly, I want to experience life with other people who share my values and be intertwined in their lives.
I looked at my parents lives again. Not just them specifically, but the everyman that they are of that generation. Yes, at my age they had a new home, three children, nice cars in the driveway, and a healthy income. However, education was not valued in their lives beyond job training. My world is larger because I have an education. It opened my life to new ideas and new ways of thinking about the world. Their vacations were tourist attractions that were hardly stimulating and enriching. Growing up, I hardly remember any family friends being around more than four or five years. Lastly, they will eventually be two people living in a 4,000 sq. ft. home. I am not judging that- if that is the life that brings them and that generation fulfillment then more power to them (with the exception of how destructive that generation has been on the earth). I do not want that life though.
We are going into this fairly clueless as to how it will play out exactly. There is a trajectory though. Our actions are going to start matching our passions instead of matching everyone else's expectations. Speaking for myself, I am tired of a materialistic, eco-destructive, isolated existence. There are things that I believe are morally right that are going to be tough. Even the first few tangible steps we have decided on are going to be uncomfortable at first. There will still be some worry about what others think. The first step is going to be a massive overhaul of what belongings we actually need. Once we have figured that out we will find a space that better suits a simpler life. I am excited for what life holds for us and how our lives will change with new priorities.
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