On change.

There are so many choices that one makes in life.  But there are only a handful of choices that fundamentally change the trajectory of one’s life.

Getting married is one of those choices.  You choose whom to marry and in that choice, you change the way your life will be written.  If you have children, they are governed by the choice of your spouse.  Where you live, what you may call yourself, your available life choices…all of these can be changed by that one choice – marriage.

Career is sometimes another one of those fundamental choices.  If you choose to be a lawyer, your life may be one way.  If a teacher, another way.  Careers can be changed, of course, but even in that, life changes.

What if a person was a high-powered business executive and later decided to work as a teacher – to follow their passion?  That choice would, in turn, create other changes.  Perhaps the house with the five figure mortgage could not be sustained.  Perhaps it would require a move to a new city.  Extra-curricular activities for children might change.  And all of those require further changes.

The house you buy represents a lifestyle and selling that house often reflects a lifestyle change.

If you live in a small, compact city and move to the suburbs, you may rely more on a car.  You may lose the tight-knit community.  You may lose the private school down the street for your children.  You may lose the hum of the subway or the roaring of the bus engines as you go to your job.  You may lose a cosmopolitan lifestyle; the message you gave the world that “I am a modern, chic person”.

Because where you life and what type of home you live in is a reflection of who you are.

I didn’t say it should be, I just said that it is.

“Good parents” move their children to “good schools” or pay for exclusive private schools, and live in a “certain” type of home.  And if they don’t, then they are desperately trying to get there.

We’ll rent for three years and then we’ll buy that house in the lake community with the four bedrooms and three car garage; the train station is five miles away to commute and we’ll drive a new minivan while taking the kids to tennis and soccer. 

Few people reject those norms; they are norms because almost no one rejects them.

There are, of course, outliers.  The ones who just came back from the Dave Ramsey conference and have now decided to live in a trailer on their father’s plot of land, homeschool their children and do seasonal canning, all while paying down their student loans in 3 years so they can truly be “debt free”.

There are those outliers who reject the monotony of materialism and consumerism and decide to pack up their 9 kids and live in an RV, where every child has one neat, little cubby for clothing and they live on $1000 a month.  (If you don’t believe me, check youtube.  It’s true.  9 kids in an RV.  It happened.)

There are the tiny house freaks.

There are the minimalists.

But they are not the norm because the norms are established.

They tell us:

Move up.

Big mortgage.

Beautiful neighborhood with manicured lawns and gleaming black driveways.

Four bedrooms.  Maybe five.  Three bathrooms.  Take the home equity loan to put in a pool or finish a basement.

Top-notch, safe schools with impeccable test scores and a near-100% college acceptance rate.  

Wait patiently at the bus stop for your child to exit the bus, donned with a Pottery Barn Kids back pack, adjusting the hem of his Abercrombie shirt.  Get him a quick snack in a zip lock bag as you drive him to soccer, archery, baseball.  

Sigh deeply when the loan bills come.

More, more, more.

I wanted this too, because I am not an outlier. I am not unique.  I have children, and so I wanted to give my children everything I did not have and everything I thought would give them the childhood they deserved.

Logically, I know that where my children live, or where they go to school, or what their home may look like does not matter in the slightest.

No, really.  It doesn’t.

I know what statistics say and I also know that I could place my children in a terrible school and because of my race and because of my educational level, their outcomes would be better than some of their peers.  Which is shameful.  But true.

If I know all of this, then why am I unable to let go of the “dream” that is, truly, a figment; something that has no bearing in how good of a parent I am, a person I am, or how well my children are raised?

Why?

I am so disappointed in myself.  I should be better than this.  I should be logical and reject the norms but I find myself deep in depression, unable to shake the shackles of those norms.

They are fucking garbage, but I cannot truly do it.

Yet I must.

I must.  It must be done.  We will sell the dream and reap the profits and we will take those profits.

Because we were once wise, the profits will be large.

Because we were not always wise, there will be no “next” mortgage, because one must meet particular standards to qualify and we will not.

Instead, we will take those profits and likely buy something else, in cash.  No more mortgage.  And we will live modestly, in an area where private schools may be necessary and property crime is a genuine concern.

I must find the strength to be an outlier and find joy in the freedom no mortgage affords us.