DEAR HUSBAND

do you remember that day that we had to crawl through a dumpster together? i don't know why i was thinking about that earlier, when we were out walking and it got too cold to keep talking (and we were out of breath from all the very 'brisk' walking we were doing to get home sooner). it was that year we were twenty-four and decided to be 'courageous' and live in england for a while... do you remember how our teeny tiny apartment had no recycling, so we would pack it all up every two weeks or so and walk a few blocks over to that one across from the grocery store... it was like this 'outing' to look forward to, getting to walk over to the dumpster with you to do our little piece for the environment. and so that, along with a few other creative and inventive ideas, just became another form of free entertainment for our empty pockets.but the day we had to stick our arms through the slot and with no line of sight, go fishing through whatever was in there... do you remember that day? do you remember the discreet pile we made of everything we fished out, searching for what we hoped we'd lost in the previous trip to the dumpster earlier that day. what about that feeling when the cop car pulled over and asked us what we were doing. oh husband... i'm glad i have you. and i'm glad that our passports and driver's licenses were in fact in tact in the midst of that smelly, sticky dumpster. and that we laughed about it as we were doing it. that we had a competition to see who would pull out the most random/weird/gross thing to find in a dumpster. and that it remains one of my favourite stories and that it still teaches me something.do you remember what we were talking about before it got too cold to speak (and we needed to conserve energy to walk faster)? we were talking about money and trying to comfort ourselves over how little of it we have (things haven't really changed since our dumpster crawling days, haha. man, aren't you glad you married me!) and we realized that all money is for is to trade for what you first need but then if that's taken care of (and if it is, we are among the lucky ones of this world) then it's to trade for things you would like. and you know what husband? i absolutely love this life with you. this freelancing life, this feeling that we're on a road less taken, trading 'security' (whatever that means) and money for contentment and getting to explore what we're passionate about, getting to travel, together... do something we hope is meaningful.. essentially, we trade money for the things we actually value most. i'm ok with that. i don't want to forget how we're just rich in other ways, ways that I'd really far rather have.you know, money can't buy happiness and all that jazz. people always say it, but i want to believe in it.so what i'm really trying to say is, more dumpster stories please :) xo, jenn