Delusions of simplicity

I was at the library late the other night and when I left, I was sitting in my car enjoying the peaceful evening when I watched another woman emerge.
This woman carried so much burden.
I watched the fifty-something woman walk unevenly across the parking lot, as if her feet hurt. Her back was hunched. She had one of those butts that is big, yet looks smashed from sitting up against a chair all day.
Her hair was unkempt. She just looked tired.
I watched her get into her car, unaware of the soft glow of the warm evening around her.
Then I noticed her car.
It was a sparkling clean Mazda coupe. I couldn't tell what year it was. I'm terrible with that sort of stuff, but I recognized the make because recently a friend was telling me about her Mazda.
It just seemed so out-of-whack.
Now, I'm not judging her specifically. I don't know anything about this woman.
But I saw it as a statement on our world.
The world we live in esteems things over self.
Have we deluded ourselves to the point where we don't see who we are anymore? We only see what we have?
It seems to me like many people I know are constantly searching for simplicity, myself included. Yet, nothing we do is simple.
We work and work to buy things we don't need. We have tons of gadgets that are supposed to make our lives more simple, or more fun, but they take up space, energy and time. We live in a rat race.
I have only recently begun to truly notice this because it has been a little over a year since I've been home with Annika.
I don't want to go back to that life.
I like staying home in the morning until we are ready to leave. I like hanging out in the backyard all afternoon, or going to the pool. I like gardening.
But I also have to pay my own way.
This is my biggest fear and worry lately. Once I go back to work, will the simple life disappear? Will Annika and I grow apart as she goes into her world and I go into mine every morning? Only to barely reconnect for dinner and bedtime?
Will my world become overburdened?
Will I be that woman?