Simple Life, Life Made Simple

The simple living family recently experienced a family trauma that, a few years ago, would have thrown us into a stressful meltdown.   Our son fell and broke his arm….in two….  Not a simple fracture or break but multiple compound fractures with exposed bone that required surgical readjustments, traction and a fairly long recovery period for an 8 year old.   

Last night I was walking the dog for some much needed exercise (for both of us) and musing over the past week’s events.  As I walked something occurred to me.  We weren’t stressed.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, we were very stressed over small boy’s hand/arm, surgery, hospital stay and recovery.  I was mostly stressed about his pain.  But other than that, we simply weren’t stressed.   Our years of paring down our life to live simply and basic meant that we didn’t have a multitude of commitments already in progress that had to be scuttled, rescheduled, revised or reworked.   We didn’t have to call and make arrangements to take over this or that.   We don’t have a ton of debt so we aren’t stressed about the forthcoming bills that always accompany a health crisis in the United States (and that is another rant for another day) or worry about our jobs, both of which were very understanding, because we have opted to stay in lower paying but more family friendly positions in our careers.   In other words, we were able to focus our entire energy towards our son and getting him through this event.

It felt good.  After this past week, I now know I wouldn’t change a thing, even if I could.