Simple versus "Normal"

Today I am having one of those days where I second guess things. My middle child's school, that he left when we moved, is having their graduation tonight. He should be a part of that class, had we not moved. He misses them and school more than I expected. If I offered to send him to the private school that they will all be going to next year, he would be thrilled.  The only way we could ever do that is if I went back to work full time. Which would mean, less time for the chickens, less time for the garden, less time for other work around here and my youngest would have to go to school... and that would be a nightmare.

I sometimes wish I knew nothing, that I had kept my head in the sand. If I knew nothing and just did things like the "Normal" people, I could force him to go to school, even if that meant medication. I could make him go to a place he is miserable at,  so we could have more money. I could work that 40 hour work week with that 35 minute commute, order take out on the way home, and sit with kids doing 3 hours of homework. I would never see them, I would never be home, I would never enjoy our land and what it can offer us. I would be back in the rat race.

Pinching pennies, saving scraps, shopping used, having chickens, growing my own food, and not being able to buy what I want when I want is the trade off for being home with my boys and helping my youngest figure this world out without him feeling beaten up and less than.

Times have changed. One salary, even a good one, is hard to live on. It is not 1960 anymore. Food prices and the cost of living are on the rise but wages are not. Good jobs are few and far between but there are a million jobs making minimum wages. People are struggling so it makes it easy to make that other choice, the choice of leaving the home and being "normal". We feel forced (like I do now) to make a choice we do not want to.

What has brought us here? We are slaves. Enslaved by the rat race. We moved out here to escape that, why do I feel like it has followed us out here, where things are supposed to be simple.