Risky Business

"Sometimes you've just gotta say, 'What the f***.'"
True when the Tom Cruise said it in Risky Business.
And true today.
Here's the situation: We've been living for over a year with a huge reduction in pay. We've denied ourselves. We've cut back. We've jiggered and re-jiggered our spending. We've looked for other sources of income. Yet somehow we managed to keep the "severance" money and even add to it a little bit. It's been a long, hard slog.
Financial sages would tell us to keep at it, to save and save because we in no way have enough of a cushion for the next time the big boys in Wall Street decide they need an infusion. Keep living small, lowering our expectations and dreams. Adopt the attitude of a hunted gazelle.
And it is at this point that we must reply, "What the f***."
Because I'm tired--we both are--of the feeling that someone else gets to tell us how to spend our money. And of the feeling that, now we've come down in the world, we shouldn't expect to own nice things or take nice trips.
And so a plan was hatched. We'd plunder a huge chunk of that cushion money we should be fearfully clinging to. We'd take a vacation--a big one--to visit my brother and his partner in Sweden. With a week's side trip to see the sights in London.
Crazily irresponsible? Maybe. But Irene is only with us three more years. Life is short. I don't want to spend it like a hunted gazelle (ala the advice of Dave Ramsey). I want to be living and doing.
So we went.
And it was so, so worth it.
We used to take vacation car trips all the time when the boys were little, but years of middle-class erosion have made us cut back on those. I'd almost forgotten how great it is to get the family (in this case, the three of us. Our oldest son came on his own dime, and the middle son was not able to come because of other commitments.) all together on a great adventure--seeing new things, eating new foods, learning about a different part of the world.
For a while, we could enjoy ourselves in happy denial of what's proved to be a dismal year for income. For a while, we didn't feel like people being cast aside.
And it did shake a few things loose for me, creatively. So who knows? Maybe I'll find a way to make that money back.
In the meantime, we're carefully paying back the credit card (yes, the credit card) out of the remainder of that slush fund. Hard times could come again. There could be layoffs.
But what the f***. No one can repossess our memories.

Post script: In my haste to get this post done quickly, I left out one very beautiful thing about this trip. After we got to Sweden, Mike (my brother) and Faith insisted on paying for most of the biggest expenses while there--hotels, tickets to London, etc. It was so generous...I get choked up even now thinking about it. So thanks, Mike and Faith, for your hospitality and your generosity.