real luxury

Luxury

For many, the idea of luxury is an expensive car, a luxe home, and a closet full of Manolos. Do me and my closet full of Manolos disagree? No, we certainly do not. However, real luxury isn’t so much about the things in life as it is the *things* in life.

While I’m not going to trade in my closet full of designer shoes and bags or start living the tiny-home life or driving something different, these things are simply the perks of living well. The real luxuries in life are much, much different – trust me.

For the past 17 years of my life, I’ve been a stay-at-home mom and wife. During my younger years, yes; I defined luxury as the hotels we booked while traveling and our home and vehicles, but as I’ve gotten older, that’s changed. Those are nice perks – and I’m very grateful to my husband for providing the life he does for us – I’ve learned that the real luxuries in life are much different.

Being Present

Perhaps the biggest luxury in life is being present for and with my family. In 17 years of parenting, we’ve never missed any of the children’s school events or field trips (well, except the field trip I was mean to chaperone when Addy was in kindergarten and I’d given birth to twins 36-hours prior, but my mother-in-law chaperoned for me). There’s no one telling me they need me here when I want to be there. There’s no asking permission from someone for time to be present with my family. Being present and focused on my family is the luxury.

Slow Mornings

Full disclosure – there’s nothing slow about mornings when you’re a family of six with a puppy, but my point stands. My mornings consist of making pancakes for my twins while my husband is taking our middle schooler to school, taking the dog on a long walk so we both get a little exercise, taking the twins to school, and coming home to workout and plan my day. I get to sit quietly and enjoy my coffee. I get to wander my garden and water my plants. I get to read my book. Slow mornings are relative when you have kids because there are always shoes to tie and someone always needs their hair fixed or their whatever is currently lost located, but I get to be here for them, and that’s what matters.

Time Together

I’ve been home for 17 years raising our family, and my husband has been working from home for almost a decade. Admittedly, we don’t spend much time together during the day because we’re both busy doing all the things, but there’s nothing like eating breakfast together, or quick lunch dates, or taking a walk together during the day. This is a luxury very few people have, and I don’t take it for granted.

Healthy Meals

One of the best luxuries about this little life of mine has been learning to cook. I’m still nowhere near as good at it as my husband, but one thing we’re not suffering from is a lack of good health. We do have four kids in sports almost every night of the week, but I have the time to cook healthy dinners for our family that we can eat before we leave. We’re not reliant upon fast food or takeout, which is great because none of us like it much.

Freedom

The biggest luxury in life is freedom – which I also believe goes hand in hand with time. The freedom to travel, to spend time together, and to be present? Those things are priceless. Sure, we don’t get to travel as much these days as we did in the past, but this is a season of busy for the kids. Right now, for example, we have a son playing flag football, our oldest daughter is on the varsity flag football team at school, our middle daughter is golfing, our youngest daughter takes two different tumble classes, the twins are both in their school’s running club, and we have a daughter in NEHS, one in NJHS, and one in NHS, one in Key Club, one running Blessings, and one who is not only a high school junior but also working to complete her AA in college prior to graduating high school next year. There are currently many places the kids have to be, oftentimes at the same time as others (thank goodness our oldest drives herself to and from her activities), and not much downtime.

I’m laughing right now because not much downtime is actually no downtime except for Sundays at this point. Every few Friday evenings and every other Wednesday evening. We are tired. We are so tired. But this season winds down in 6ish weeks, and then we enter into the field trips, grad nights, academic award season before summer break. It’s a lot, but it’s a gift. So while we might not necessarily have much freedom to do things at the moment, we do have the freedom to allow our kids to do the things they love without issue.

Peace

Too few people ever find real peace in their lives, but it’s the epitome of luxury. Waking up each morning knowing we don’t have to spend time with people who don’t bring us joy or add value to our lives makes it peaceful. Knowing we’re not forced to do things that don’t bring us joy is peaceful. Living in a home we love surrounded by people we love is peaceful. Surrounding ourselves with the kind of people who ding-dong-ditch entire care packages for our sick babies when they’re down with the flu and who text to say they checked the kids out early from school with their own kids on a Friday afternoon to go get ice cream or whatever – those things bring such peace.

If loving life’s unimportant luxuries is wrong, I certainly don’t want to be right (I type moments after asking Nordstrom to notify me when the Gucci slides I want for spring are back in stock in my color and size). But at the end of the day, it’s time, freedom, and peace that are the biggest luxuries, and I think we’d all do well to remember that.

What are some of your favorite little luxuries in life?