Elizabeth, who is swinging in roughly the same project management hell trough I am, recently asked a question that I have thought about for a few days now.

What is enough?

In a life of much, how do we pick out what is just the right amount to keep us afloat? What do we need to keep the violins playing softly in our souls, to keep the demons at bay? And maybe when we get there, it will be human nature to just keep wishing and hoping for more and more.

It's tiring, keeping up with the Joneses. I did it in my teens and early twenties. It leaves you feeling unsatisfied, as though you always have to work for something better, thinking: Why yes, I do want a ceramic sake set, thanks! And yes, I absolutely need a sterling silver turkey baster! And of course I want to live life on the meager edge just so I can afford a two-year old BMW!

When I left my first husband I left absolutely everything behind-all I had were
my cats and the clothes that could fit in my car. Sometimes it burned me up to think of all the things I had left behind-electronics, furniture, books and CDs, things I touched and held and wanted. At the same time, I learnt how to be the person I needed to be-a student in student's quarters, living with the basics and embracing boho with all of my might.

In college I became a chick who could wear boxer shorts to class and wash her hair every other day in rose-scented shampoo. I rarely wore makeup, and didn't even own perfume. I lived with brick and board bookshelves and a hand-me down couch and mattress. I lived day-to-day in the food department and drove the most economical and boring car I could find.

But I was happy. I look back on one student campus housing apartment I lived in with my cat Nick and have only fond memories of hot summers, archaeological digs, books and dancing to the radio. I remember it with a taste of roses in my mouth and Gatorade in my senses.

When I graduated and was thrust into the corporate world, enough was about the money. What could I get, how could I demonstrate I deserved where I was. It became about the business suits and the right demonstration of wealth. I had to prove to the world who I was and I had the credit card debt to prove it. I had to look the right part to be enough, and I even dated a guy who fit in-a tall and handsome blond Finnish guy who was hands-down one of the worst lays in my life.

Strangely, once I left the stock-broking firm I calmed down on my materialism, while at the same time ramping up the work ambition into overdrive. I didn't need an image to be enough, I needed the job to be. I did buy a nice new car (my VW Cabrio) but I lived simply with two male friends in a house, and even though I was earning fantastic money my furniture was from Target and clothes from the Gap. I was happy, living in a rat race defined only by one rat.

When I moved to Sweden, my enough became just absorbing my new culture. Once again I had left everything behind, and looking back all of my possessions are like weird spectre-memories to me, things that almost exist as items I see in pictures, items that make me think of sweat and self-revulsion and cardboard. My enough in Sweden was my job-I had to work, I had to be the best, I had to work hard.

And look how hard my enough saw me fall.

Now I look back on my life and think about the massive changes to my enoughs. Things have little to no impact on me-I'm just as happy with furniture from Ikea as I am from a poshy furniture store. Maybe it's because I know that a dresser or a TV stand is not something that I'll have a long commitment to, that my wedded bliss to a piece of wood rarely lasts past the honeymoon stage. I view items as having utilitarian nature. While this doesn't mean I want ugly shit just because it's cheap, it also means my heart won't be broken if tomorrow someone takes it all away (ok, except for my Sims. And I do have a very big crush on the plasma TV, but we haven't rounded third base or anything).

My enough has changed as much as I have and I am beginning to think that this is now my permanent basis for enough. I used to joke that I wanted a house on the French Riviera and a dozen boyfriends, but now I think that the French Riviera is overrated and that a dozen boyfriends is too much work. I wouldn't say no if someone handed me a winning lottery ticket, at the same time being a millionaire is not a big driver in my life. If it happens-cool, I'll buy that big house on the cricket green. If not, that's ok too.

Now my enough in my life means I could say what I feel without repurcussions. I could throw my arms up and laugh things off. I could believe in myself and not feel the constant fucking need to apologize at the drop of a hat. I could look telecom in the face and say, unblinkingly: Folks, we're talking about mobile phones here, not the cure for cancer. Nothing we say or do here is going to make any kind of difference in the long run. The world will not remember us.

My enough is to have a house by the water. To be able to take holidays when it's time for one, and to love every inch of the little house that I will have. To sleep without Kafka, to dream with an Angus. My enough has me sitting in a tall and loving rocking chair by a fire, my feet curled under me and a gentle rock in action. There are bookshelves all around me and a dog laying at my feet. Maggie and Mumin are curled up dozily on their favorite chair, close enough to the fire to sit up and blink at it from time to time. My enough has sounds of Angus and our child laughing in the kitchen.

My enough is quiet and small with time enough to dream. My enough has intimacy and light, the nooks and crannies of it no longer filled with things or work or status but with items that are branded onto my heart and filled with simplicity. The world may not remember me, but when I look back I want to be able to remember it for what it was, the real and revealed version, not hidden behind shiny foil wrapping paper.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 12:29 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 1176 words, total size 6 kb.

1 Beautifully written. It's funny you should blog about this today. I was just thinking about how simple things in life are enough to make me happy. Yet I'm always being told that it's wrong that I have no lofty dreams or ambitions...especially careerwise. Someone will ask me "so what do you see yourself doing 5 years from now" and all I can say is "Snuggling with my future children, our kitties, and my hubby."

Posted by: Jadewolff at March 17, 2005 01:36 PM (8MfYL)

2 Beautiful - the only thing I want to add is that I want to be remembered by my friends, family, and co-workers. When they read my obit, I want them to sit back and think - "Damn, he was one hell of a nice guy. There was never anything he wouldn't do to help me if I asked. I hope I'm remembered as fondly as I remember him. He lived a good life." - That is my goal.

Posted by: Clancy at March 17, 2005 01:42 PM (JxYJc)

3 My enough is always just a little more. Take Care Michael

Posted by: Michael at March 17, 2005 03:03 PM (OEVsR)

4 After all the times you've inspired me... Thank you for this post, you made me revisit my history and my dreams. Your words always evoke such vivid pictures in my mind.

Posted by: Elizabeth at March 17, 2005 03:03 PM (kJ6/v)

5 It is amazing how life changes us. I was like you.. poor in college, got the great job... I was all about the job. I worked in a pressure cooker. People actually died of heart attacks at my place of work... at work. I'm going to be 40 in September. I haven't worked for that company in 5 years... since they closed the plant and miraculously... my life continued. My needs are different now. My line is, "We aren't saving lives or staving off world hunger here...". I just want quiet, health and my family and friends. Oh, and internet acccess. That is all.

Posted by: Boudicca at March 17, 2005 05:24 PM (z7nbM)

6 hmm, your enough sounds a lot like mine. you're so close to it. you must be able to smell it. *much love*

Posted by: kat at March 17, 2005 05:27 PM (8cFtB)

7 when I was in high school, I wanted to walk barefoot around the British Isles in the rain and write poetry and play the tin whistle. Then I went to college, and I thought I wanted to be a historian. Now I want to educate women all around the world, and save them from oppression, and always be learning. I don't think there is an "enough" for me, because I always want to be learning more and more, and doing more and more, but I can find happiness in between, I think.

Posted by: Calla at March 17, 2005 06:48 PM (JnB1m)

8 You always have words to live by and learn from...all I blog about it crap and U2 lyrics (new thing recently.) There are voices in my head but they won't let me write about them

Posted by: Juls at March 17, 2005 09:07 PM (9aRbg)

9 Beauteous. As embarrassed as I am sometimes to have grown from the girl who WAS going to conquer world ills to the woman who is a Typing Monkey working from home; I realize that I am doing what it is I want to be do. The difference is love. If you have it in your life, your "enough" becomes different -- simpler. It's when you feel alone and unloved that the "enough" becomes material substitutes. I love you. Your heart, your mind and your beautiful, lovely soul. In fact, I think you would be astonished to learn just how many people DO love you, darling.

Posted by: Margi at March 17, 2005 09:58 PM (lWAiX)

10 This was lovely, thank you Helen. Made me remember my own realization when I finally learned what was "enough" for me; when I left my ex and all my "things" behind too. All that stuff we'd collected that I'd thought was so important. I was so scared to do that, to leave it all. I confused the material items with my own value. I'm still amazed I actually left it all when I didn't have to. But I did and I learned something I'll never forget again: That I can be happy without the "things". That I tend to complicate my life with too much stuff when it isn't necessary to be happy. As you say, nothing we say or do in the long run will make a difference, so let's enjoy the time we have in this place as much as possible. :-) Thank you for the thought-provoking.

Posted by: Amber at March 17, 2005 10:20 PM (zQE5D)

11 Helen, you have such a way with words. I think about what is enough all the time - walking and listening to my walkman, on the train, in bed at night, drunk in bars, in the rain.....you really express it so well, the eternal question. love fairy abs x

Posted by: fairyabs at March 17, 2005 11:42 PM (OidUZ)

12 I read every post you write. I love the words that spill from your fingers. The stories you relate, the feelings you convey with those stories: they grip my heart in a way that is virtually impossible to explain. In all the posts I have read of yours (and there have been hundreds, now, I think), I have never felt the words as deeply as I feel these words. I am so glad that you have your enough for now....It inspires me to figure out just what my enough is....

Posted by: Mitzi Moore at March 18, 2005 02:17 AM (LoPwh)

13 Juls - U2 lyrics aren't a bad thing.. "I ain't afraid to die, I ain't afraid to live And when I flat on my back, I hope to say that I did. Pretty much captures the sentiment Helen was writing about...

Posted by: Clancy at March 18, 2005 01:01 PM (JxYJc)

14 You guys are lovely. Honest.

Posted by: Helen at March 18, 2005 02:32 PM (Vd6WF)

15 Indeedly. I don't remember what my first couch looks like, but I certainly remember the people who sat on it. I don't remember the backpack I carried to school, but I remember my favourite teachers. I don't remember the furniture on the porch of the house I grew up in, but I remember all the dogs who lay at my feet while I sat there. Like you, I've left possessions behind to make a new start in a new country, but I only miss the people I've left behind. So I absolutely agree with you. Like you, my "enough" is also not tied up in material possessions or money. (Although I'd love to be able to take care of everyone I love.) I do think though that people should ever have quite 'enough;' because that might make us all a little too complacent. It's only natural to want more and different things (and no, I don't mean material things per se) as we grow and evolve through life. You know what I'm trying to say?

Posted by: redsaid at March 18, 2005 10:59 PM (ULA2y)

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