(Trees outside the hoop house in our backyard)

Living a life opposite of societal ideals can be a little depressing sometimes.

Rather than aiming for amassing money or climbing corporate ladders or box-checking (as in: married? check. car? check. real job? pending.), S and I have prioritized experiences above everything else. This is why we’ve gone on so many trips, with so many more planned in the near future. This is why we quit the jobs we hated to pursue our dreams and blah blah blah.

Right now, our finances are a little tight. Money goes into two categories: savings or to pay off the medical bills from my surgery. Oh, yeah, and we eat sometimes too. And I like this plan. And by that I mean, the plan makes sense. It’s logical to get the debts off our back and to prepare for the future. It makes sense on paper. It’s responsible. But sometimes, I just really don’t wanna.

It’s not like we’re struggling. In fact, things have gotten better for us lately with my book sales and freelance work. We have just made a conscious decision to spend most of our money on those two things. Most of the time this is okay, but every so often I wonder what our life would be if it were different – if we were different and we made different choices.

I was talking to S about this the other day, and about how paying off a debt can feel like spinning your wheels – we work hard but the circumstances haven’t changed yet. He looked at me and said, “It’s not like we’re not happy. We’re just a different kind of happy. No one we know is making choices like we are.”

He’s right.
Especially with holiday season approaching, I’ve been thinking of all the different ways we could be spending money. But they aren’t really ‘different’ ways – they’re the ways everyone else is spending money! There’s nothing wrong with other people’s choices, they just aren’t our choices. We aren’t patterning after them because we’re aiming for something different in the long term. Ultimately, we’re aiming for a different kind of happy.

(Please note that we do not feel that any kind of happy is in any superior to any other kinds of happy. This includes but it not limited to judgments based on life goals, lifestyles, personal choices or anything else anyone reading this is thinking of being offended over.)