Not Enough

“It’s your friend Mandy, isn’t it?” As he asked the queston Ron sat up in bed, then turned his head toward Susan and waited for her response.
“It’s not her,” Susan replied wearily. “It’s more a matter of what she has.” Susan pulled a pillow to her bare breasts and folded her arms around it.
“What does that mean?” Ron grumbled back.
“It’s just that seeing her made me realize I’m missing things in my life, things that I want. Mandy has those things, but so do a lot of other people. So it’s not her specifically; it’s more me.”
“You’re saying this whole thing comes down to things?”
“In a way.”
“I thought the idea was to avoid getting hung up on things. We were going to live together and work minimum wage jobs. Our plan, in case you don’t remember, was to avoid obsessing over money and prestige, because the people who do that can never get enough to be happy anyway.”
“I was high when I agreed to that, and we had just had sex. I thought that was enough.”
“But now you’ve changed your mind.”
“Apparently,” Susan answered with a sigh. “Mandy has a job she really loves, and she and Rick have just had a baby.”
“A baby, I see.” Ron rolled his eyes. “So what about finding fulfillment in simple things like music and friends and books?”
“I’m not saying I want to get rid of music and friends and books, or even grass for that matter. I’m just saying those things aren’t enough.”
“And now you’re telling me you want to go back to school. I don’t get it. We both have college degrees. We don’t have anything left to prove.”
“I want to go to law school and become a public defender, a good public defender. I’m not interested in making piles of money, but I want to contribute in a meaningful way. I want my life to count for something. And eventually, I want to have a baby. And I want to be able to support that baby.”
“I thought you agreed that the world is already overpopulated. What about that?”
“I don’t want to have ten kids, just one.”
“So are you seeing someone else? Is that what is really behind all this?”
“No, nobody else is in the picture.”
“But you want to break up?”
“Yes.”
“Have you thought about possibly having a child with me?”
“No, I owe the child more than that.”