That Man I Love

A couple of years ago, when money was very tight for us, I was in line to buy my groceries and an older woman in front of me was handing things back to the cashier one by one, waiting for her total to drop low enough that she could pay her bill. I have always regretted not stepping up with my debit card and paying for at least part of her groceries. Because while, sure, at the time money was very tight for us (so tight that there were quite commonly weeks where we had no money left after paying our bills), buying this woman her ice cream and and a few cans of soup was not going to make any difference to us in the long run. And having the generous impulse and squelching it left me feeling small.

I liked life better back in the days when I simply didn't have generous impulses. I have always been anxious about money, concerned that there won't ever be enough, worried about the future. On the one hand, this can lead to good things--I'm one of those people who started saving for retirement at age 24. [That modest account got cashed in to pay a lawyer bill during our custody dispute. We now count on the Tiny Tornado to support us in our old age.]

On the other hand, I have well and truly earned one of my family nicknames: Penny-Pinching Control Freak.

I've been fretting about money lately because we have more of it to fret about. About a year ago, we paid off a couple of large loans, and there started to be some wiggle room in our budget again. I had imagined that when this happened, it would be a smooth process: things would loosen up a little, and we would spend a little more to take up the slack: pay down another loan that much more quickly, order takeout just that much more often, start getting professional haircuts again. Step by step, I imagined, we would slowly grow into our freer financial situation.

Ha! As it turns out, it can be a psychologically challenging transition from "clearly not enough money" to "enough, but not infinite" money. It was impossible to prioritize the list of things we'd had to put off. Which was more important: getting the gutters fixed, or buying new shoes for Raider? The curriculum I'd been eyeing for years, or a shirt for me that cost more than $9? New tires for the van, or Raider finally having a chance to visit his best friend several states away? Life insurance, or a new bike for the long-legged Lego Savant? College savings or charitable contributions?

In some ways, it was easier when the answer to everything was simply "no."

Normally a very good money manager, I lost my grip. Last summer, I went overboard on house maintenance, somehow failing to foresee that this very reasonable $100 job plus this pricey $300 job plus this practically-nothing $75 job plus this other $200 job added up to more free money than we had. This spring, I've gone overboard on curriculum and on cool things for the kids that have been on our wishlist for years. And, for once, I haven't gone drastically underboard on buying decent quality clothes that actually fit me and are cute.

For some reason, despite having an excellent system in place for planning and tracking, I just can't manage our cash flow right now. I'm sure I'll get it sorted out soon enough, but it's not sorted yet. And because I am a person who cares abut this kind of thing, I've been feeling fretful about it.

Raider is used to my fretting. He pays it little attention. The other day, he wanted to go buy a new iPad, which we have all been coveting, because he could get 18 months same-as-cash plus double rewards points. Since I am the Budget Guru at our house, he asked me if he could. I said, "Oh, jeez, honey, I don't know. I feel like we've been overspending already, and I just can't seem to get a grip on things, and I think the van might need new rear brakes..." Raider pretended to look at his watch, and said, "How long do you think the Ritual Angst will take? Because I'd like to get going."

That wasn't my point, though.

I was going to tell you that I learned to be generous from Raider. He often sees a financial windfall, or an opportunity to get a little extra, not as a bonus for us, but as an opportunity to act on one of his own generous impulses. Many years ago, a friend of ours living on a low income needed a new computer in order to use some adaptive software; Raider said to me, "We should buy him a computer." And we did. He wonders if we can use his bonus this year to help a friend-of-a-friend get a replacement for his recently-retired service dog. When I had the absolutely crazy idea a few years ago that we should give our second car to a family we knew who were having a transportation crisis, he said "What a great idea. We should do that. We're hardly using it."

Before I had lived with Raider for a few years and let myself get rubbed off on, I'd never have done anything like that. I'd have been sure that giving away a car we could have sold instead meant we'd be poor someday. That buying someone a computer might somehow make the difference between eating and starving. That it wasn't our responsibility. Even that these were offers you couldn't make, that these were conversations you simply couldn't have. "I'd like to give you some money so you can take a break from work and focus on your painting." "I'd like to buy you that computer you need." "We'd like to talk to you about helping out so you don't have to go too long without a service dog." What the frell, Raider? I know you grew up in North Dakota and are a dork, but surely you must know that these things simply aren't done.

But Raider does them. He is generous all the time, in big and small ways. And if he is sometimes generous with himself (new iPad! xBox 360!) he is much more often generous with me, with the kids, with his friends, and with total strangers. And he is generous both with his money and with his, what would you call it? His approbation? Over the years, I've had hundreds of conversations with Raider that go like this:

Me: I want to go to a writing retreat for a month, and take our only car.
Raider: OK.

Me: I know we've been using a 6-foot utility table since our dining room table fell apart two years ago, and that we had set aside this money toward getting a new table with matching chairs so our house won't look so much like a frat lives here, but someone posted a Mindstorms NXT 2.0 set for a really good price on eBay this morning and I used the table money to buy it.
Raider: The Lego Savant will be so excited.

Me: I didn't get any dishes or laundry done because I spent the whole day watching TV and playing with the baby.
Raider: That sounds like a pleasant day.

Me: I know I said we couldn't afford the Summer Gathering this year, but I really want to go and it means a lot to the kids.
Raider: You should go.

Today I did something generous for some strangers. I'm not going to say what, because I have been bragging already and that's not the point. The point is: I didn't come by this naturally. I caught it from Raider, who is simply one of the most fundamentally decent people I know.