It wasn’t very long ago that all my family called one house in Southern California home. We lived under the same roof, ate at the same table, and watched television on the same 27” Zenith. That was less than five years ago.
Now we’re all older, my parents live alone, and my sisters and I are slowly drifting around the country, living in different houses, calling new states “home.” I’m married, and I can’t imagine living anywhere but Northern California. Megan is living in a condo in Bremerton, and Mindy is starting to put down roots in Kentucky.
Kentucky! Washington! Sacramento!
None of us could have imagined where we’d be today. Our lives had trajectories that were predictable and obvious, plans that were so immovable that only cataclysmic changes in life situations could alter them.
And then those changes happened, and situations altered, and here we are.
I’m sitting next to my wife at a desk in a house that we own, in a room I designed just for her, so that it would feel more “homey.” We’ve created a new family that all lives under one roof, eats at the same table, and watches television on the same 42” Zenith.
How long until all that changes too?
3 months ago
Ever since I built Misty her library in what was formerly the loft, I’ve been drawn to spend significant amounts of time there. Sitting around books and shelving makes me feel more intelligent - as though the activities I’m involved in carry more weight.
For instance, I spend time on my computer doing the same things everyday. I can do these things downstairs, upstairs, on the couch, at the dinner table, or standing up. I know no physical bounds to my computations. However, when I’m involved in these actions in the library, the importance and gravity they take on are heightened.
This is inexplicable. Editing the HTML on a website in the presence of innumerable tomes does not add significance to the HTML being edited. Nor does it make a wordy blog post more erudite.
It feels like it does, though. And so I keep doing it.
3 months ago
I have a newly-formed habit of knocking on every closed bathroom door that I come across, whether it is public or private, locked or unlocked. This is a habit you would have also, if you’d walked in on someone using a bathroom without locking the door.
It is a horrifying and humbling and hilarious experience, in that order. I don’t recommend it, but if you should experience it, I hope that you will savor all those feelings. They are fleeting and once-in-a-lifetime (you would hope). As for myself, I am washing my mind with the strong soap of the internet, pleading with the images that have taken hold there to begone.
Until next time, stay classy.
3 months ago
