Money Can't Buy Me Love

Yesterday the Dude and I attended a potluck with friends. Only instead of potluck, we all brought $10 and the hosts used their connections to buy steak, lobster and rum.

It's hard not to enjoy your life when your weekend is spent doing things like eating lobster, seeing friends, sleeping in and being incredibly lazy. Even if you are broke at the moment. The $20 we put in was so worth it, but waiting on some cheques to be paid out, it was a stretch. I sometimes ask the Dude how we'll look back on these early years. He says we'll feel like we paid our dues.

Not like we're po', exactly, but things are a little tight. Such is life when one party is a burgeoning freelancer. There's something romantic about it in its own way. It's sort of a struggle we're sharing together. I always liked listening to settled married couples talk about their first few years of living together. It always involves a story of tight budgets, less than ideal living conditions, some sort of hardship that they had to work on dealing with as a team.

Not that I wouldn't love me some sweet, sweet spacious home ownership or exciting vacations or lots of dinners out. But I've long since developed an appreciation for the things that build character. Knowing how to do without makes the doing with into something fulfilling. It's like a reward instead of a frivolous distraction.

It also makes you love the smaller things. The Dude and I have never travelled together. We've been overnight at his dad's on the lake. That's about it. Take something like going on the rollercoasters together at Canada's Wonderland last Sunday and there's been a happy glow in this apartment all week. When you can only do so much, what you can do feels amazing. And here we are saving and putting away money for a trip to Mexico in November. It's a bit of a burden, but we're making it happen together.

Today we slept in. The Dude made us coffee and we drank it in bed. Then we stayed in bed, ate scones and watched Mad Men all day. And it's the things like that which remind me not having money isn't so bad.