Do you know what "enough" feels like?

Half a ceiling is better than having no ceiling at all.

That, my friend, is the lesson I have learned over the course of the past year or so.

In both very literal and somewhat deeper and more metaphysical terms.?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

You see, a combination of unusually heavy rainfall, shoddy workmanship, the passage of time, and a dash of bad luck conspired to create an ominous brown mark on the ceiling in my living room, in between my standing desk and my drum kit.

At first, I didn’t pay it much heed. While it wasn’t a welcome addition to my interior décor, neither was it a massive eyesore. For a few weeks, its presence didn’t really importune me in any significant way.

But the rain continued to fall. And the brown mark progressively turned into a brown patch, getting bigger by the day.

Until suddenly the ceiling paint fissured, and a flurry of damp splinters came down around me during a Teams call like an untimely drizzle of makeshift confetti, full of foreboding of worse to come.

Fast forward a few months and I have lost count of the number of phone calls I have made to my insurance company about the damage, cursing the time wasted, their muzak, their epically unempathetic and ineffectual chatbot, and most importantly, the lack of progress towards anything resembling a refunded repair.

Adamant that I wasn’t going to be defeated by a digitised system where the odds seemed stacked against me, I stuck to my guns and kept phoning back, leaving messages, sending emails, threatening more formal recourse which inevitably provoked a placatory "Madame, veuillez nous excuser [for us taking the piss in how we’re dealing with your claim].”

Needless to say, the bracketed words are mine, not theirs.

Long story short, after 8 months of a worsening paint situation, it became apparent to even my inexperienced and amateur eye that the ceiling was so wet and so damaged that it was sagging to the point of near collapse.

And if it did come down, there was a high probability that it would land squarely on me, my workspace, and my beloved drum kit.

In the face of the ongoing dithering and prevarication on the part of the insurance company and their subcontracted and sub-par repair service, I had only one other option which was to do myself what they were meant to do and find forthwith someone in equal parts competent and affordable to cut out the sagging?ceiling section.

Find someone I did: his name is Paulo and he is the fearless hero in this story who, without flinching or uttering a single word of complaint, took a shower of stagnating rainwater and a vengeful slap on the head from the rotting piece of plasterboard he dislodged from its sodden abode.

As he brushed up the mess on the floor and scooped it up with his bear-like arms, I saw him see me, watching. He stopped what he was doing and leaned on the brush handle, weighing his words.

I had never met Paulo before that day and he had no reason to care about my situation beyond getting the job done and dusted. But something gave him pause. I imagine it might have been the sight of me looking momentarily as decomposed as my former ceiling, a tired veil of fatigue on my face tinged with a dash of despair.

With the calm assurance of someone who both knows how to fix ceilings and seems to have the lived experience of having overcome adversities far, far worse, Paulo looked at me and said, with an impish grin and a wink, “Madame, what are you worried about? You still have a perfectly good half-ceiling, that’s a whole half-ceiling more than what millions of other people have. Plus, if you have half a ceiling, it probably means you have a decent chance of having at least half a roof over your head. And that’s not nothing”.

For a split second, I wanted to yell a torrent of abuse at him, taking out all my months of pent-up frustration and resentment of having had my cosseted suburban existence perturbed against my will.

Until I realised he was gently, kindly and pointedly putting my “ceiling disaster” back into a wholly more approriate frame.

This was no disaster, by any measure. This was a temporary inconvenience. For sure, one I could happily do without. But still, neither a disaster nor a permanent state of affairs.

A “mere” 14 months after I declared the damage to my insurance company, my ceiling is finally scheduled for repair. ?My sarcasm in this case is a futile pot-shot at the corporate bureaucracy, institutionalised buck-passing, and absurd processes that get in the way of good people being able to do the right thing in their work.

But notwithstanding the insurance company’s nonsense, I have hope. I am choosing to believe that things will come good and the plan will pan out. Eventually.

And in the intervening period between now and then, I am also choosing to be a better, more mature, more reflective, more appreciative version of myself, compared to the raging harpie I almost was back in the summer.

When you buy a house and fork out a sizeable sum of money every month in the shape of a mortgage repayment, of course you don’t enjoy seeing a chunk of your dwelling crumble around you.

When you live in a world where carefully curated instagrammable interiors seem to be everywhere and the baseline standard for being is filtered perfection, of course, a gaping hole in the ceiling of the living room can feel like a gaping failure to achieve.

When you live a life of such comfort, of course, any inconvenience feels like an existential affront.

And that’s when I realised I have been spoiled. Spoiled by abundance. Spoiled by ease.

Spoiled by expectations.

The combined teaching forces of a leaky ceiling, a worldly workman, and a recalcitrant insurance company gave me a benevolent kick just forceful enough for me to realise how lucky? I am.

Yes, the exposed concrete blocks and rotten wood are unsightly in the hole where the plasterboard used to be. But shift your gaze to the left a metre or so, and you’ll see me typing peacefully in front of a roaring fire, sipping from a mug of Lyon’s tea from Ireland that’s just the right kind of strong and just the right kind of hot, with candles flickering and old Benny Goodman tunes playing on the stereo.

It’s all very hygge.

And in this moment, I feel the full warmth of my situation. I am grateful for it.

In this moment, I am urging myself to simultaneously value it, hold it lightly and, never assume having it is my inalienable right.

My better self is telling my present self to appreciate what I have while I have it and never lose sight of the temporary nature of all things.

For nothing will ever be perfect. Nothing is forever. Things will break and unravel.

We may break and unravel. I have broken and unravelled.

But what breaks can be put back together. What unravels can be mended.

As long as we are patient and willing to live through the discomfort of abject mess and what can be a lengthy process of repair, we will eventually come out the other side renewed, reinforced, and shining brighter than before.

There will always be work that needs doing, areas of ourselves and our lives that could do with a bit of welding and a lick of paint.

There will always be more to do, more to strive for, more to achieve.

Some circumstances will go our way. Others won’t.

Some situations will try us to the limit of our endurance and push us to what feels like the brink.

But we can only know the strength of the stuff we’re made of by the measure of the tests we face.

There is always a way forward as long as we don’t allow ourselves to be defeated by despondency and resentment.

Remember, my friend, perfection is not the goal.

Having a full ceiling is ideal. Having half a ceiling is enough. Especially when the roof above holds strong.

And as I sit here in front of the fire, enough feels like plenty.

I wish you that warmth, my friend.

May we know what it is to feel enough.

??AJ