To WVa again, postponing vacations, worth of a man

Monday we will be traveling to West Virginia again. This should be the next to last time we make the trip for Chase’s braces. After he gets back from Costa Rica, he will get them off. I can’t tell if he is more excited about going to Costa Rica or about getting the braces off. Wait. I can’t ever tell if he is excited about anything. (Not!) He has a rough summer ahead of him. But on the bright side, my nephew will be coming back from West Virginia with us and as an additional bonus, Jake will be making the round trip so he can visit with Mama Kim’s family there. Everyone is looking forward to that visit. (I’m bringing earplugs.)
We are postponing vacations again to conserve money for other more important plans. Mama will be flying down to see our next grandchild be born and I will follow later – during our shortened vacation time. Our daughter is worried about the timing of our planned vacation so she wants to get Mama down there a little early so she can relax if she goes into labor before our “due date” arrives. I will end up making the round trip in one week, but maybe my nephew will come along for the ride.
At the corporate level, a mans worth is generally measured by his compensation package and though I have typically been well compensated, it has very often been a disappointing way to gauge my progress among my peers. I am not heartbroken that those days are almost over. But I am a man without a house, only one modest car, and an embarrassingly negative net worth, walking away from a six figure income.
So how will I gauge my real worth from this point on? I can guarantee such a measure will not rest heavily on my credit score – I am aiming for zero. It cannot be fairly leveraged against my earnings – they will be minimal.
I will have to re-adopt the trusted standards I once used. On our first semi-permanent move to West Virginia, many years ago in 1988, I had only my wife and our children…literally! No job, no income and no promise of either. No home of our own. No place to even store our boxes other than a barn loft. We had credit card debt, a loan on the car, diapers, formula and groceries to be bought and no money to do it. We made it through, got a job, bought a farm, set up a home, and watched our children and our love for each other grow.
And as I recall, those were the richest days of my life. No wonder I miss them.