It’s summer again and it has occurred to me that working a four day week has drastically impacted my savings and, therefore, my holiday options. I’ll get by and summer will be lovely but it will need to be simple, even small. I don’t think that we are okay with small, on the whole…in fact, I think there is a serious fear in many of us about living a small , simple life.
Maybe it’s big city life, maybe it’s too much social media, actually, it’s likely both, but it feels like everyone is running all the time, obsessed by things and everything in life needing to be an event. I read an article recently that was comparing our current economic world state to The Great Depression. The article made the comparison but the writer was quick to point out how much housing prices had increased, in a manner completely out of range by comparison to Depression era prices. True, real estate has become ridiculous and I can see how frustrating this can be as a young person, just starting out. The author was defending the current state of mind of many twenty something’s, they aren’t lazy but depressed….how does one get ahead?!
I’m not immune to this way of thinking myself but I have also discovered that time may actually be more important than money. No, I can’t fly to a faraway, exotic location this summer, posting all my amazing photos and mesmerizing my friends and acquaintances with images of my adventures abroad. I can’t buy a brand new, on point summer wardrobe to wow strangers and passers by. I can’t dine out on patios, under brightly coloured umbrellas, sipping fruity, icy beverages (at least not often!). I have to keep it small if I’m going to manage my meager funds frugally.
To be simple, small and frugal isn’t a very modern, Millennial way of living. It is a manner of living that, I think, our Depression era ancestors and relations had down. Think about it…their lives were all about managing, survival and maintaining their family. The furthest thing from my grandfather’s mind was whether or not he could fly to Bali for the summer. He had acres of farmland to tend so that harvest would be fruitful enough to support the family through the fallow months to come. My grandmother was in a house dress most of the time, busy harvesting and canning, “putting up” food items to get the family through the hard winter to come. She wasn’t heading off to meet the girls on a patio for a liquid lunch that she’d post later on social. They lived simply. Life was about the dailies of living, sowing and tending, harvesting and saving, conserving and managing the best they knew how. They were strong, a united front, resilient and hardworking people, living through a tough time in history.
So, this summer, and into the autumn (I still plan to work a four day week) I choose to simplify. I honor my grandparents and how simply and honestly they lived and survived in an impossible time. I will take long walks with friends, press wildflowers between sheets of waxed paper, like I did when I was a little girl, I’ll find and bring home small treasures, bits of beach glass, a robin’s egg, I will keep it simple. It doesn’t mean that life is any worse, or better, for that matter, than anyone else’s, and it’s mine. I have time, and time is a gift, a treasure.
