On Tuesday morning at about nine thirty, the phone at work rings. “Good morning, law office.”
“Hi babe.”
“Hey baby, how are you?”
“The eagle has landed.” Cryptic talk like this means that walls have ears.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. They want me to start on the twenty-ninth.”
Excitement was building. He was deadly calm, but being married to him, I know suppressed excitement when I hear it. “Oh, that’s wonderful. How much?”
He told me how much.
“WHAT?!” I screeched in surprise.
“Yeah.”
I think my eyes were blown right out of their sockets. I know that I spent the rest of the day trying to locate them and place them back into their orbits. Without advertising numbers, let’s just say that a) we’re hardly starving, but he was initially underpaid for his position where he is now, and hasn’t had a raise in two years because nobody there has any idea how to run a business and the business probably won’t exist by this time next year; and b) he not only jumps substantially to six figues in this new job, but also he has the potential of doubling our current income.
O. M. F. G.!!!
After about two minutes of fractured sentences punctated with “WOW,” and oblique references to benefits, my sweet husband says, “and now we can go forward with the adoption stuff because we can afford it now.” I melted.
After the phone call ended, I screeched with glee and clapped my hands. Then I sat in my chair, stunned, for about five minutes. After that, I maniacally stalked the office for about two minutes (good thing Boss was at court and I was alone). Finally, I had to share the great, wonderful, miraculous news; I called my friend in Indiana because he had kept me sane throughout this stressful period. Called his work, it went to voice mail; called his cell, went to voice mail, and I left a message. Then I emailed him. He finally popped up on Facebook’s chat and typed, “?” He was wonderful and I thanked him three different times for being there through the crisis.
I went to lunch, but I didn’t know initially where I was going. Didn’t matter; I was thanking God aloud repeatedly, tears streaming down my cheeks, as I tried to drive. The relief is that profound. Talk about depths to the heights!
I wound up at Sonora Brewery, the first person there. I entered, stopped, stared, and I said to Cindy and Liz, “A miracle has happened.” Then I did something I never have done before: I had a lovely hefeweisen with my lunch in celebration. I texted the husband and said I was having a beer with lunch; he texted back, “a day to celebrate indeed!” We went to Chinese for dinner in celebration.
Oh, praise God. Thank God! It’s only this evening, Thursday, that I have come down from the high enough to type a thing. Granted, the next six weeks or so we’ll still have to mind the pennies, but God, it’ll be so nice to not have to freak out at the end of every pay period.
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Naturally, the first thing we discussed once the first excitement wore off was the agreement that our spending habits can’t change. Let’s get the car paid off, then my student loan paid down, and we can go from there. Of course, we can pick up where we left off on the adoption application.
The relief for both of us is huge, financially and stress-wise, we can relax. We can enjoy the hell out of Vail, and not have to watch every single penny spent. We can enjoy and know we can pay the Visa down by the end of January when the statement comes.
I love it. The feeling is wonderful. It’s a miracle indeed.
