Nominating My Husband for Sainthood

Ha.

I should absolutely know better.

No sooner do I announce my intentions to rededicate myself to writing with an eye to the future, but the present comes crashing down. This morning my husband's car died in a most spectacular fashion. His was supposed to be the reliable car (in light of my car's own consistent stalling/electrical problems). And the clutch basically collapsed, luckily before he got out of the parking lot at our apartment.

It looks like it's going to cost almost 2/3 the car's actual value to fix it.

He took my car in to work, and we evaluated our options.

So today, instead of writing, instead of going to the gym, instead of all my grand plans, we dealt with life.

This is probably my fault. I set a plan to be completely selfish with my artistic endeavors, and I, of course, generate a cosmic road block that says: "Not so fast!"

However, now that I sit to think about it, it's infinitely appropriate. No writer that I have ever heard of or known has had the chance to sit back and luxuriate in the privilege of writing. Not until they've sacrificed and waited and toiled for the privilege.

I've had it easy.

My husband has been so wonderful in encouraging me to pursue my dreams. He actually asked me not to get a full time job, but to concentrate on those things that make me happy, to pursue a career as a writer, even if that meant that we gave up the guaranteed second income.

Frankly, we've really made that work. We've excelled even. We may pay a little too much for rent right now, but we enjoyed dinners and drinks out with friends, trips out of town, expensive gym memberships, and very little sacrifice, all on a single income. Sure I brought in a few handfuls at a time. My work in politics helped  a lot with that, actually.

To have the chance to do almost nothing but work on my own vanity projects and creative endeavors with no immediate hope of monetary return was a luxury. One that I really don't deserve and haven't earned yet.

But I will.

We have to figure out how to fix this car with very little in savings and still find a way to move into a new place in about two months. That means we have to come up with a few thousand dollars out of the blue to pay for the necessity of this car and a deposit on a new place while we wait for our current place to cough up our security deposit in the three month time limit they have under the law. It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to take on extra writing for pay, maybe look at a part time job, and cut back on a few extravagances we've enjoyed in the past few months.

That's right. Because of my husband, the saint, I barely have to give up a thing.

I don't know if you know how incredibly amazingly lucky I am to be married to such a person.

I do.