I just sat down at Starbucks with my decaf coffee and was about to begin writing in my journal, but decided to share this on here instead.

I’ve written quite a bit here about my wardrobe issues — namely, going from a bazillion clothes to an almost-capusle wardrobe. It took a lot of work, and, truly, some feelings of withdrawal,  to learn just because the jeans fit doesn’t mean I need them and yes, the dress is cute, but I don’t need it and many other lessons about not buying just to buy. I still get the Gap and Old Navy emails because, let’s face it, the four people in my house do need clothes, so it’s good to know when things are on sale. But I no longer open every. single. one. and check to see what new items have been added to the clearance section of stores.

My clothes. That’s as far as the lesson had gone. Until recently.

My computer, a 2011 Macbook Air that I love, except for the minuscule hard drive, has been acting up. My trackpad sometimes works just fine, sometimes it acts like an invisible person has taken control. My cursor moves and clicks randomly, completely by itself. It’s awesome. Not really. At the Genius Bar, they cleaned it out for me and told me I can send the computer in to get it fixed for about $300.

Our bathroom faucets recently stopped shutting off. Sometimes they drip, sometimes they trickle, sometimes they full-on run. When we called the plumber, we found out that “all new pipes” in our house meant “all new except the one in the tub. To fix our faucets, we have to have the piping replaced. To do that, the tile, vintage 1950s or 60s blue ceramic that we actually kind of love, has to be ripped out. Another wall of the shower has severe water damage—last year tiles started falling off, but we were able to put them back up and re-grout around them, plus the window has a rotting wood frame (yes, a wood framed window inside the shower)— so if we’re ripping one wall out, we might as well rip the other two out too and get it redone correctly.

I’ve been going to yoga at our gym a few times a week. One of my favorite classes is Hot Vinyasa, even though it’s truly one of the hardest workouts I’ve ever done (if it was two hours long, I might even say it is harder than the triathlons I did) and, because she loves or hates us, our teacher usually picks one terrible pose to hold for an insane amount of time toward the end of class. Vinyasa means movement, so this hold is to help us get our breathing and heart rate back under control, but also, as she often says, for us to “deal with it.” Whatever comes up, during the plank or chair or warrior, (for me, it’s often sweat and shaking and limps falling asleep and muscles giving up) we need to deal with it. “If you fall out, get back up.” “You can do anything for five breaths. And five more.” I freaking hate it. But when it’s done, it’s ahhhmazing.

There’s a lot of things I want, but I don’t need. A new computer would be great. A fully renovated bathroom…that would be awesome. A walk-in closet full of clothes that I love and make me look amazing. New pots and pans. A kitchenaid mixer. Brand new bikes for my kids, and rollerblades and gymnastics classes and every lego set ever made and, for Chris, the new Star Wars Droid. But none of that is what I really need.

We’ve never carried interest-bearing debt other than our mortgage, car loan and student loans. We budget carefully, do our best to stick to it, and figure stuff out. We “deal with it.” Right now, that means buying an external mouse for my computer, and getting our shower, but not the rest of the bathroom, fixed. It’s teaching our kids to appreciate what they have (if anyone has advice about this, I’d love to hear it) and save their money for what they want. It’s learning what we need, and realizing the rest might be inconvenient, but it’s not going to kill us. It’s learning to lean into the discomfort and deal with it. Because, sometimes, we learn things when we’re most uncomfortable.

It’s hard to do in our society. We see something like a billion marketing images each day. It’s easy to feel like everyone else has what they want and I’m stuck with this. I’m lucky to have friends that have chosen to live this way also- not monastic by any means, but considering what we need, considering what we can afford. In learning to deal with it, to learn what we really need and what we just maybe kind of want, we also get the opportunity to see other ways we can serve and be of use to other people.

This is what I’m thinking about this Tuesday morning. I know it was a bit ramble-y.