As I have aged, one of the many thoughts that often makes its way into my mind, is my anxiety over material things. I often wonder why I either don’t have something, or can’t afford something, or I am perplexed and dismayed because whatever that something is, it seems always just out of my economic reach. It’s quite disconcerting, and if I’m honest with myself, also a source of depression. It seems that I often have let my self-worth be determined, in large part, by my net worth.

It’s not that I don’t have things, however. In fact, I have far too much of most everything. I love the outdoors, and often spend a lot of time, and money, on outdoor things. I have three tents, three sleeping bags, four kayaks, a fishing boat, and a small sailboat. Yet, despite the plethora of items in my possession or at my disposal, it never seems enough. I’m always perusing yet another sporting goods website or reading the Farm and Fleet advertising insert in my local paper for that “something” that I must be missing and feel that I need.

I also make plenty of money, at least in comparison. While I am certainly not rich, and have plenty of ordinary bills and a few debts that I would like to reduce, I am in no danger of starving or of not being able to go to the store and buy whatever I would like for dinner or of not being able to pay my mortgage. My wife and I even manage to take a few trips every summer, and always bring back a few trinkets for our kids, and to remind us of our adventure.

I grew up pretty poor, in material things. Raised by my father after my parents divorced, money was tight. He and I lived for many months in a one-room cabin along a river, with a single main room, a one-burner stove, and an icebox for a fridge. Another time, we lived in a 17ft camper-trailer in a side yard of one of my Dad’s good friends for a year. It wasn’t that he didn’t work hard – he was one of the hardest workers I have ever seen or known. But sometimes, despite your best efforts, life takes turns and it takes a while to dig yourself out of a situation, which he eventually did, with patience and hard work. I was and am so very proud of him and how he held his head high no matter the circumstances. But still, at the end of his life, materially all he had was an old house, an even older truck, and not much in the way of material things. Not much for all of his hard work, I thought.

Looking back, that upbringing had an impact on me. I was determined not to have a life of want. I studied hard, went to college, and eventually became a lawyer, all the while determined not to want for anything. I was a firm believer in the entrenched ethos taught, directly and indirectly, in our schools and social systems, that if you played by the rules and worked hard good things will come and you will have the life of your dreams. The future could only be bright, it seemed.

But then real life happens. Bills come and your anticipated income, while sufficient, does not give you the life you envisioned or thought you “deserved” after all of your efforts. You constantly think of the things you want, and believe you need, that you don’t have and very probably will never have. When you hit middle age, you realize your life curve is on the downward side of the arc, and it feels like you’re running fast to a future far different from the one you dreamed of, and that you never thought you would have. Anger, anxiety, depression, all rear their head at times and it can feel overwhelming. That’s where I have found myself on more than one occasion.

However, I have recently had an epiphany of sorts. It started when my son and I went on a week-long kayak trip down a remote river here in the Midwest. Kayaks being very limited in weight and space for carrying supplies, by necessity we had to pare down our initial room full of gear and gadgets, to the very basic essentials. The survivalist’s creed of the 5C’s had to take precedence: Cover, Cordage, Cutting, Combustion, Carrying. That’s it – there simply was no room for anything else. Eventually, we accomplished our goal of carrying and storing enough gear and supplies for two grown men, all in a couple of medium sized kayaks.

We had a fantastic week – telling stories, seeing wildlife, making campfires every morning and evening, and just being alive. Not alive in the sense of simply not being dead, but being alive in its truest sense – very aware of your existence, and how lucky you are to be in existence, as the vast environment of the universe has afforded very few creatures that luxury. Our wants, needs, and possessions, were few indeed, but our lives were certainly full that whole week, nonetheless. I will always treasure that week.

That perspective has stayed with me now for many months, and I have been thinking of that trip often since we returned. I look around my big house, full of things of all type and nature, that I was sure I “needed” at the time I purchased them, that in reality I clearly didn’t need at all. In fact, besides my guitar and my trusty kayak to take on the lake of an evening, I’ve barely touched any of my other possessions. All that I need in life, I had on that trip with my son. We had shelter, food, clothing, a means of transport, great conversation and company, and of course, true nature and a feeling of real existence, of being truly alive.

It was then that I realized I was wrong to look back on my childhood with a sense of want and lacking. Yes, all of those material things that we were missing were real and really missing indeed, and felt very real at the time. But I was wrong to wonder at, and almost pity, my father, for what I viewed as his stoic response to those hardships. He wasn’t being stoic – he was being real, in the true sense. My Pop knew then, what I am only just discovering now. Our self-worth as a family unit back then was never dependent on the material circumstances of our lives. We always had the 5C’s covered, even in our darkest days. That time living on the river was magical, looking back in the proper light. Unlike other boys my age I saw bear and coyotes almost nightly, and fished for wild salmon and steelhead after the hours long drive back to the cabin after school. When we lived in the trailer in the side yard, I now recall that some of our best father-son talks happened over a hot cup of coffee on a cold morning, sitting around that old fake-paneled, take-down table, that every old trailer seemed to have. Good times indeed. Real times. Real treasures.

Before he passed, my Pop and I were sitting on a bench outside one of our favorite watering holes after having dinner and a drink on one of my many return trips home after law school. He had a big smile, and put his arm on my shoulder and said he was lucky to have been one of the richest guys on the planet. I now realize he meant every single word, and just how rich he was. And just how rich I am.

Time to go gas up my old rusty truck and get a hot cup of coffee.

copyright (c) 2021 by D. James Clark, all rights reserved.