I’ve been grappling with some tough questions lately, despite my best efforts to shelve them and just think about how awesome Poppy’s first summer is turning out to be.
I feel like the luckiest girl in the world because I am blessed with so many things. What Jacob and I lack in treasures, we make up for in priceless moments that we enjoy together. We’ve never wanted to do the American-dream-with-the-white-picket-fence thing. Not our style. We don’t own a home, nice cars, hearty furniture, or the latest clothes. We can’t afford any pets, or the luxuries of the Western world that include paid-for-television, organic food, and eating out. We can’t afford these things because we have made a choice not to be able to afford them. That’s confusing, I know. What I mean is that the lifestyle we live, is the one we are choosing to live. We’ve prioritized our lives to get us to this place of having very little money to live on.
When we got married, neither of us had a real, or sustainable job. I was teaching ballet part-time and Jacob was finding small-business freelance work wherever he could. I was still in school, but Jacob chose not to pursue college. We lived in the finished attic of our pastor’s house and paid rent that you would laugh at. We ate a lot of Ramen noodles that first year.
While those memories seem fond from a distance, I remember being a little afraid of our plan. Our plan was to pursue what we loved, worked where and when we could, and leave the rest up to God. Some called us irresponsible. We were pretty poor. But we knew in our hearts that we would rather live without certain things than to live with jobs we hated or lives we regretted. And even though we were young and stupid, we also knew that when we looked down the road, we wanted to have things like a global family, time for each other, passion in our work, and the ability to pursue our wildest dreams. We knew that if we didn’t start a plan to live in accordance with our goals back then, we would be setting the wrong pattern for the rest of our lives.
Not much has changed since our first year of marriage. Jacob did get hired on full-time to a place that he was freelancing for, but we still live on very little money. Despite the dollar and cents budgeting that is required with this kind of lifestyle, it suits us very well. We are still wearing the same clothes we bought years ago at second hand stores, and we still eat Ramen noodles quite frequently (though we’ve now upgraded to include oyster crackers!). Whatever we enjoy in life, we don’t take for granted. We appreciate the gifts and the vacations our family and friends have provided us knowing that we don’t have a recreation budget.
We frequently talk about moving forward, re-aligning our lives to free us up, and passing on things that we want in order to save for things we REALLY want. We know adoption is in our near future, so we’ve cut more tiny luxuries from the grocery budget (oh alcohol, we loved you!). We know Jacob wants to get back to freelancing at some point in his career, so we’ve cut two planned trips out this year and have started taking on freelance jobs for him to build his portfolio.
I know none of these ideas are revolutionary and we’ve had some very good examples of goal-oriented living in our lives. Our parents, for example, lived lives without luxuries so they could grow their families, have time for their each other, and have time and energy for their passions. I am grateful for their examples.
I struggle everyday asking myself if we’re doing the right thing. I know we are taking the path less traveled and sometimes I wonder why. Is there merit in what we’re doing? Will Poppy benefit from what we are trying to do? After all, she won’t have a college fund or be able to go to private school or have things she sees her friends having. I know in my heart the values I want to give my children are good. But sometimes I still question if we’re doing the right thing. In the flesh, our lives look much like they did three years ago when we first got married. It isn’t easy to see if we’re making any headway.
I’m really going on about this now. I will spare you. So, readers, what about you? I realize some of you have very different plans than I do, but it’s all good. I want to hear lots of different sides. Do you ever question, for better or worse, the lifestyle you are living and how it impacts your family and your children? How do you keep from second-guessing yourself?
