Miracles

I believe in miracles.

After all, I live with one every single day.  It's impossible to spend much time around the Boy and not acknowledge something otherworldly about him.

So that I believe in Divine Intervention in the following story should not surprise any of you.

***

Last Friday I stopped in the leasing office of our complex to pick up a package.  As I walked in the door one of the leasing agents said, "Speak of the Devil!"  And I (unaccustomed to having people admit they've been talking about me) said, "Uh-oh.  What?"  She then went on to ask if there was any way Chris and I would consider staying in our apartment, we're such good tenants, they hate to lose us, blah blah blah.  Then she said, "What if I could offer you a zero increase on your rent for 6 months?  Would you think about it?"  And I stood there and tried really hard not to cry.

Naturally, I said that I would take it to Chris and she should call me when she heard back from her senior manager about the zero increase and we'd make a decision then. 

I talked to Chris about it and his reaction was along the lines of, "HECK YEAH we'd stay!"  So then we waited.

The leasing agent called back, of course, they couldn't make the ZERO increase work, but she had talked her senior manager down to just $40.  Could we pay $40 more a month in rent?  And no, it wasn't perfect.  It wasn't the ideal.  But it was a way out of Moving Hell.  So I said I would talk to Chris.  And after chatting over the pros and cons and mixed feelings (we're still not crazy about the management of our complex, we're not wild about many of the clientele, the rent is still outrageous for what our apartment is, and the way they distribute utilities is an absolute SCAM), we decided to stay for another 6 months. 

Of course we did.

Because if any of you have been reading Burnstopia for very long you know us by now.  You know that we speak hastily, even recklessly, but we act conservatively.  It saves us having to move while pregnant.  It saves the expense of an additional move, it provides us with an additional 6 months in which to house hunt, and at a still workable rate of cost.  Of course, we're staying put.

And all of this got me thinking about miracles.  I think human beings stopped believing in miracles because we expected them to be perfect, to solve ALL of our problems, or better to make them all just go away.  And what living with the Boy has taught me is that miracles are rarely (if ever) perfect.  They seldom meet all of our would-be specifications.  But they are ENOUGH. 

I've also been pondering a lot on this notion of sufficient.  Just having enough.  Not more, not less, just enough.  And while I still wish for an excess of energy, or time, or money...I'm content with this little miracle just as it is.  It's a huge burden off of our collective plates.  Chris came home from work Friday night positively cheerful, which he hadn't been all week--because looking at apartment listings will do that to a man.



And now...I can NEST.