The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
~Maya Angelou
Many people ask me how I have been able to stay home with my son as a single mom who isn't on welfare and doesn't get alimony payments. It wasn't an easy transition, but it was a simple one. I had to re-evaluate my life and get rid of all the extraneous while holding on to what really mattered to me. That is being a mom and an individual.
I certainly didn't want to spend 10 hours a day at work only to rush to pick my son up from daycare just a few moments before he went to bed for the night, just to create the illusion that I was keeping up with the Joneses. That is no kind of life. At least it is no kind of life for me. To create a life that I actually wanted to live I needed to make some big changes.
I took a long hard look at my life and what I wanted to get from it. I wasn't throwing big dinner parties. I wasn't hosting overnight guests. I was spending nearly 70% of my monthly budget on housing, most of which I didn't even use. It was then that I decided to get rid of much of my stuff and move into a smaller home.
We are able to live quite comfortably in a smaller home. There is less maintenance and the extra room in my budget has allowed me to weather emergencies that would have otherwise sent me scurrying back into the rat race. We have less stuff, which means less stuff to maintain. Choosing a smaller home also means we can live closer to the center of the city which allows me to be carfree while having access to parks, public transportation and plenty of cultural activities for my son.
However, the biggest benefit of all has been that these last four years have been spent with my family and I wouldn't trade any amount of space for that!
Namaste,
Ani
