Enough

My father had a word for every state of the ledger except one. Behind, ahead, balanced, tight. He never once said enough. I think he didn't believe in it. Cash on principle for forty years is a way of never arriving.

I've come to think enough is the most important number in this whole subject, and the one nobody sets in advance.

The clean-enough file

Jenavieve's day-sixty piece ends with a file that has two dashes on it: one item that's accurate and stays, one that's still in round two. That's a clean-enough file. The buyer who keeps disputing past that point isn't fixing anything; she's avoiding the application. I've done it. It feels like diligence and it's fear.

Set the number early. When the mixed item is gone and the paid collection says paid, I apply. Then, on that day, apply. Not because the file is perfect. Because it's true, and it's enough.

The big-enough house

The other number. Somewhere in the second month of a search, the house grows. The kitchen that was fine becomes small; the yard that was a yard becomes a problem. Nothing happened to the house. The wanting outran the reason for it.

The buyers I've seen happiest set the house before the search, with a sentence: three bedrooms, a table by a window, and a payment that leaves room for one bad month. Then they stop when they find it.

The question under the question

What people are asking when they ask how much is enough is permission to stop. Nobody gives it. You have to write the number down before the wanting starts, and then keep faith with the earlier version of yourself who wrote it.

My father died with a balanced ledger and no house of his own. He'd have said that was freedom. I think he never set the number. I've set mine. It's the flat above the shop, and it's enough.