Life Was Always Meant to be Fabulous

I came across this article and thought it gave an insight into things. It is called Living Simply Can Be Simply Fabulous. At my age I can hardly remember how I came to be in the lifestyle I am in. I know I have been living modesty all along I think, maybe with occasional minute burst here or there.

"I don't know what your life was supposed to be like, but mine was supposed to be modestly fabulous.

I would maintain a modest-but-hip wardrobe (Banana Republic with occasional forays to Henri Bendel sales), live in a modest-but-ample Manhattan loft and eat at chic Manhattan restaurants, while dashing off once a year to someplace remote yet trendy. You know. Nothing fancy.

For several years I actually tried to live this life, only to find that I was getting deeper and deeper into debt. Giving up the lifestyle to which I'd become accustomed didn't seem like an option. But neither did getting a job as an investment banker.

Which left me two choices: I could continue to live my dream lifestyle, even though it was turning my finances into, how do you say in English -- garden fertilizer? Or, I could figure out how to live a life I could afford. A far more ordinary life.

Hordes of people who reek of money

When you think you're entitled to a certain standard of living, "ordinary" life seems beneath you. It's mundane and tedious and involves things like cooking dinner, doing dishes and staying home to watch the "Six Feet Under" tape your uncle made for you . . . because, in point of fact, after doing the math, you can't afford your once-hectic nightlife. To rub salt in my ego, there is the pressure of New York -- bright lights, big city, fat wallets -- all around me. Living well is just a given for many people who live here."

I think the area in bold writing must sum things up in a way that I haven't heard before. No one wants that retro way of living. And I find as time marches on, I have gone more and more away from it myself.

Rereading the bold letters, it seems more about escaping the role of a homemaker. I didn't take it that way when I first read it. Seeming the picture of the family watching TV in this video really made me understand how much my family and I have changed since moving to the isolated area we live in, away from that model, which is amazing since this location lends itself very well to some form of dropping out.

"People stayed home watching three channels on their TV". Since living here five years ago after one year in another unusual place, a rustic kind of place; we have had satellite TV for the first time at an age of 44 I think. Kids here probably do have more of that kind of TV because in some places the normal free to air reception is bad. I know when and if we move to our new house that we are renovating for a debt free life required payTV, although of course I could go back to how it was when I was little, though reception was pretty good most of the time. Thanks probably to Dad's patience with the aerials.