I’ve been thinking about enough lately. In this country, enough has become a concept that’s almost unpatriotic. Saying you have enough implies you’re satisfied. It implies you’re not endlessly striving for more, better, faster, perfection.
I’ve spent the last week on Spring Break. I meant to blog, had packed the laptop, but left it at home. Rather than type into my phone I said, “it’s time for a break” and let myself have a vacation for a week.
Taking a week off of anything, even a hobby, is something it’s becoming harder and harder for us to do. Mr. ThreeYear took a week off of work for the first time in a long time, but still checked in to his email daily. “We’re expected to,” he explained.
Enough has been allusive this year, a year of transition for my family. The house needs so much, I’m not working, we have a new dog, we live in a new town. Mr. ThreeYear endlessly searches for just one more device (used, on FB Marketplace) that will make the house a home. I’ve been searching for the perfect curtains, bedspreads, toilet seats, patio furniture.
And yet, we live in a place where the excess bothers me, daily. I drive along perfectly manicured streets, watch as landscape crews dig up large, beautiful cherry blossom trees in the median and replant smaller, beautiful cherry blossom trees. I see people replace perfect, new late-model SUVs with perfect-er, newer late model SUVs. Our across-the-street neighbors now have more cars in their driveway than they do people in their home.
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