Big Life, Small Life

*Originally posted on my Wordpress blog04.08.2020 

It was part of a more complex conversation but I commented to a friend the other day that I refuse to live a Small Life. That sentence got dropped rather casually into the conversation but the next day my friend asked me to elaborate on that remark.  I was pleasantly surprised because the request to elaborate made me work a bit.  I had to sort out what I meant in order to write an explanation.  I appreciated the challenge and I learned a couple of things.

Big Life,  Small Life.  I have thought about this a lot over the years.  The idea came out of my 20’s when I was all about experiences over possessions.  I wanted a Big Life. I wanted to build a life that was anything but routine and closed.  I wanted to try out lots of opportunities and not settle for any one path.  I excelled at that back then.  I traveled to Asia, Europe, South America, Canada and on several US road trips - all of it on a very limited budget.  I went to college and immersed myself in many interesting classes.  I didn't confine myself to classes in my major but, rather, made it a point to enroll in at least one non-major class each semester.  That was easy for me to do.  I was so curious about so much and I pursued answers.  I was open to all kinds of people and had a wide variety of friends, male and female, and with a broad range of life experiences.  The Big Life included seeing the world but it was also the life of the mind, the creative life, the life of emotions and relationships. I explored ideas, in writing and art, in conversation and classes.  I was alive and excited about the world.

Fast forward.  At age 29, I got married . My life then got both bigger and smaller. Bigger because I had this new experience of being married and in a partnership with someone.  Smaller because I had to factor in his preferences and work around schedules more than I did as a single person.  Two years later,  the kids came along. Same thing.  Life got bigger and smaller.  Bigger because I had this fantastic and rewarding new experience of being a parent.  Navigating parenthood enlarged my world and I was delighted to have broadened my experiences.  But my world was smaller too because now I really had to settle down.  For lots of reasons, my life grew smaller.  One house, one town, a narrow world of nurturing kids, making dinners, and folding laundry.  In the precious hours when the kids napped,  I made room for a Bigger Life. I wrote,  I created art, I read and explored ideas in my mind.  However, the Small Life was the dominant one.  My connections with other people became so much more limited.  For the most part, my friends tended to be other women.  Most of my engagements were with other people in my town, primarily white, middle class people of privilege.  So my world got smaller even though it was simultaneously getting bigger.

When I went back to work, again,  my world expanded.  I was still bound to routines but now my experiences with the community got broader.  I found new sides to myself,  new ways of being that were exciting and rewarding.  Teaching in a public school K-2 program was gratifying.  My days with the children and their parents deeply enriched me.  Later, when I was starting to feel my world close in on me, I transferred back to the middle school as school counselor/administrator.   What a steep learning curve in my new assignment but wow!  Talk about expanding the self.

Big Life, Small Life. How are they different?  A Big Life is an attitude.  It’s about being open, being curious, being willing to take some risks.  It is about being vulnerable with people and living with the consequences of that vulnerability.  It’s about being willing to step out of your comfort zone. The Big Life is a courageous life.  It is a life of questions and exploration.  It’s about intellectual, social, emotional, and relational curiosity.  It is not about complacency or settling.  For me, it’s about spending my time and money more on experiences than on possessions. It's about having an open, inquisitive, engaging  perspective. It's being alive.

Conversely  the Small Life that I refuse to live is about being stuck in routine and comfort. The Small Life says my way or no way.  The Small Life is scared and unwilling to take chances on people, on experience, on the world.  The Small Life is lived in tiny boxes and among people who are just like me. It doesn’t want to examine the already established patterns of living and thinking that I own.  It says, “Here I am. Take me or leave me but don’t ask to consider anything novel or out of my comfort zone.”

Our kids took off on their own lives.  I left the school district, eager to float on to new adventures. What happened to my life then?  Did it get Bigger or Smaller? I'm still wondering about that.  It seems to me that intellectually, artistically, and emotionally it got bigger (and it was already a Big life in those realms). Relationally it got smaller.  My  partner, for the most part, chooses to live a Small-ish  Life.  It's hard, but not impossible,  for my relational life to get Bigger when his is Smaller.  It takes courage and perhaps some negotiating but there's room for Small to expand.

I wonder if, as I get older, my life will get smaller. I suspect that that is common. I also suspect that being aware of Big Life, Small Life gives me more of a choice about which path I travel.  At the moment, I find the curiosity and spirit of a Big Life to be more attractive to me. How about, for now,  I practice a Big Life and, how about, for now, I remain open and curious about what comes next.  That's the best I can do right now.