A funny thing happened to me recently - I was thrust into my Utopia when I least expected it and wasn’t prepared for it. And it was meant to happen exactly that way because no other way would I have appreciated it and recognized it like I have.

I’ve spent most of the last 10 years with a vision of exactly what kind of life I wanted if I could design that life myself. I know it’s good to have goals and dreaming is ok too but the problem is that all this dreaming distracted me from reality and also I’m not very patient. I like to make this happen NOW. Later might never come. I was so busy dreaming about what I didn’t have that I failed to enjoy what I did have. Which was a lot. That said, I’m not sure I could have ever truly enjoyed it because all of ::that:: isn’t who I am, it isn’t what I want and it doesn’t make happiness magically appear.

The day that Tony called to tell me he lost his job was the first day of my Utopia. I hated that job - oh how I hated that job - with a passion that had a life of its own. I hated how they treated my husband from day one: if we weren’t already unemployed and desperate for ANY job, there is no way he would have taken that job. But as it were, we WERE desperate (and of course they knew that) and so it was better than nothing. It was meant to be temporary until he could find something more well-suited for our family but it turned out to be both more temporary and more long-lasting than expected. The Job will not be missed.

I could sum up the life lessons I’ve learned in the last few years with a number of cliches about how life is how we live it and not how much money we have. Those are the kinds of things that are easy to proclaim when you have no money but for a long time I felt this sort of mismatch with our life and my inner joy. I often - OFTEN - thought back on a time in life that Dalton fondly refers to as the “frozen pizza rolls” days where our total annual income was $9000. We were broker than broke for a family of 4 but damn I was happy. And I was a good Mom - a really GOOD Mom. And I was healthy in ways that I haven’t really resembled in years. Of course we tend to idealize the past, I know it wasn’t my Utopia but the point is that I have always felt a certain joy about being free from the social encumbrances that come with money. One of those biggest encumbrances, for the vast majority of people, is that your time is no longer your own. You have no freedom, no flexibility, no opportunities for illness, exhaustion or just time off to enjoy life. You are owned by those who pay you. Where is the joy in that?!

I think one of the things that instantly attracted me to Vietnam was that the people had so little but were overfull with joy. I wanted that. That is my Utopia.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to live on $9000/year. There are things that ARE important to me that DO cost money: my home, our cars, my children’s extra curricular activities. But there are also things that are so important to me that I have now that I didn’t have two weeks ago: namely, my husband’s presence. I love having him here, my kids love having him here, he loves to be here. I love being able to go to the zoo at 10am on a weekday, as a family. I love being able to travel, even if it means sleeping in a tent to afford it. I love being able to get up and take a walk…..alone. Plus I am also spoiled: I love it when my husband brings me passion tea lemonades at lunchtime and tells me to go take a nap in the middle of the day and catch up on last night’s tv that I was way too exhausted to stay awake through. I love that he can sit outside and work while the kids swim in the pool and if he gets hot, he can jump in too. I love, most of all, seeing my husband working hard on things that truly matter, achieving things that he would have and could have never achieved had he been stuck in the cubicle hell and being validated for his talents instead of recriminated for them.

Tony has worked from home in the past and it was nice but not like this. I didn’t have the appreciation I do now. I took for granted almost all of the perks. Once things changed I made those sorts of deals you made with yourself, God, whomever. I said “If I ever get the chance again, I will be a better wife, a better mother, I will use the time to take better care of myself.” So that’s why the very first thing I did on the very first morning after Tony lost his job was to wake up and go out walking. I bartered for more time and I won, I was going to make good on my promise. Granted it has only been about 10 days but I think we both spend time daily reflecting and appreciating what we have gained from this loss. I feel so blessed, so privileged. And that was something I most definitely never really *felt* before.

And one final note on personal growth. I’m such a control freak, especially about money and finances. I would not ordinarily say this is a bad thing but it is not always a good thing. I think when you are so hung up with making things perfect, you lose your perspective. You lose relativity about what perfection really is. You forget that Life truly really honestly does just Go On whether you are in control and everything is perfect or not. And you can hang on for the ride and have faith and trust in those you love and in life itself or you can freak the hell out and try to make sense of it all and try to make it all fixed yesterday. You can probably guess which one of those two scenarios I resembled 10 days ago and which I really feel I am today.

Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility. In that state of mind you can deal with situations with calmness and reason, while keeping your inner happiness. That is very important. Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed or unhappy because of circumstances.
- Dahli Lama

One of the bad habits I’m trying very hard to break is the whole “We’re broke” sob story. First of all, broke is relative and its insulting to say we are broke after having visited Vietnam and seen what little even monetarily wealthy people have. Second, we are rich in ways that aren’t reflected in our bank account and at the moment, those riches feel like Utopia. I feel like I won the lotto. I found my inner peace.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Taboo Topics, Things I Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.