Is it worth more than our freedom or the farm?
Mischa and I went to the museum last week. A simple trip into town but it felt like we were going against the grain of our “usual” life but as that’s what we’re trying to do now, it helped us practice flexing that muscle.
It was a Thursday morning and the first time we had ventured out into the world at a time when most kids are in school. It felt freeing and a bit unnerving. I was ready to blurt out “she’s home educated!” if anyone who even looked at us funny. But no one batted an eyelid and Mischa was completely cool about it. I was having to unlearn how life “is supposed to be”. It was my own monkeys I was wrestling with.
After a few hours learning about the Egyptians and extinct animals, we wandered down to the shops. I don’t know why. It felt almost wrong to be up town and NOT visit the shops. I hadn’t been into any clothes shops since last summer, in fact I’d only been food shopping. I expected, looked forward to feeling some kind of buzz, maybe even an overwhelm of sensations — smells, colours, experiences — but it was all a little disappointing to be honest. And yet, I could feel a pull, a whisper in my ear — “you need to buy something… go on… you know if you buy that exact right thing it will make you feel better, plug some kind of gap… try it.”
It got really loud when we went into a large bookshop I used to buy my university text books from. It was a trip down memory lane and I had the great idea of getting Mischa a workbook or something to help her with her learning. As she skimmed through a few books, the light in her eyes she had from the museum trip got dimmer and dimmer. All that reading looked so boring and hard to her. I realised that this need to buy something was not about Mischa or even the product itself. It was about my need to feel like “a good mother”, to give her something that looks like education as I know it.
As we moved from one shop to another, I was aware that the whispering voice persisted. However, as I checked out with myself if I really needed something I realised I really didn’t. The voice was misleading me but seemed to genuinely believe it was telling me the truth, helping me somehow. It is the manifestation of our work-buy lifestyle.
But to help us with this we have come up with a mantra/question before we whip the credit card out: is it worth more than our freedom or the farm? The farm is a shorthand way of meaning the smallholding or land we want to move it. The freedom it refers to is freedom from debt, freedom from what we may have to do to pay off that debt, freedom from “stuff”, and freedom from tidying, cleaning, disposing of that stuff. The intention behind the mantra/question is to help us make conscious choices when it comes to spending money. And it works. When I remember to say it to myself to helps drown out the whispering, needy voice.
