That was enough

I caught myself the other day rummaging through my wallet to find money to buy cigarettes. I could just round up 3 euros and 45 cents and I thought at this moment: a few years beforehand, that would have been enough. Then I went to a bar to meet a friend of mine. He's got a master degree in Physics, but he's still looking for a job. It's been nearly six months now. I listened to his story, then I said to him: "well, you've got what it takes to work for a company. A few decades back in time, I'm pretty sure that was enough."

Another guy I know was thinking about getting a flat in Paris to move in with his girlfriend. He had cash, she was working, they weren't listed terrorists. So I thought that was enough. But then he told me about the queue lines in front of every apartment and the time it took to get an answer from the estate agency, and so I changed my mind.

I would fancy having a boat one day and sail across the Mediterranean Sea. I could call here and there at every port I see, chasing the seagulls and dancing with the dolphins. All I would need is a bit of money to buy myself a small craft. I'm sure there was a time when that was enough. But I recently learned about the bunch of authorizations you need to make this dream come true and the cost of docking in the smallest French port, and I figured out that wasn't.

One of my cousins lives in Madagascar. She invited me there and that was nice of her. "Can I come right now?" I said. I wanted to, that was enough. But she told me I first needed vaccination against hepatitis A and B, rabies, malaria, diphteria, tetanus and measles plus a 50-euro visa. I was a bit puzzled and I asked her: "will that be enough?"

So I went back home with kind of low spirits. I served myself a glass of whisky to cheer me up and I turned the TV on. It was a popular music show. A girl stood behind a microphone and was singing a song she didn't write about something she didn't know. Then she talked about her and said that music was her life. But she had many other things in mind. She'd soon be part of a movie and had started writing a book. Well, as she wasn't exactly a writer either, someone she knows would do the job.

And so I leaned back in my sofa, listening to the girl, and I let a smile come to my face. And as she started massacring another famous song, I gladly said to myself: "I guess back then, that at least wasn't enough"