This week I had two days completely to myself. My wife took the girls with her to her sister’s house early on Monday, and got back very late on Tuesday night. Two full days of temporary bachelor-hood.
I’d been looking forward to this all weekend. The world was my oyster.
Go see a movie? I could do that.
Play video games for 5 hours straight? I could do that.
Go out to eat at a place that doesn’t ask if you want fries with that? I could do that.
Wander around in an electronics store for an hour without a 5 year old asking to go to the bathroom? I could do that.
Fix the light in my kitchen? Yeah, right.
Anything I wanted to do, I could do.
So what did I do?
I realized that I depend on my wife forcing me to come down for dinner to get me to stop working.
On Monday, I walked away from my laptop at about 8pm. Took a walk around my property and saw how long the grass was getting. Realized I could go see a movie, but then couldn’t find one that started before 10pm that I wanted to see. So I ate a Hungry Man TV dinner and watched Jackie Chan in Twin Dragons on OnDemand. Even bored stiff I had trouble enjoying that movie. Then I went to bed.
Tuesday was much more exciting. I worked until about 7pm. Then I went out and mowed the steep hill at the back of my property, which, as usual, wiped me out. I came in and took a shower, at which point I realized that I had a sudden, unbelievable craving for buffalo wings. I had no idea where to get good wings in my area, so I asked for help on Facebook, and by 9pm had gotten a good suggestion and headed out. I had a dozen wings and a side salad. Then I came home and watched TV for a while until my family came home.
So, with 2 days of complete freedom, my most exciting moment was heading out to a local pizza place to get wings. Excellent wings, mind you, but still not the level of excitement I had in mind at the outset of the week.
No movie, no games, no steak dinner, no good books, no drooling over electronics. Not even any good TV.
It’s not like I didn’t have time to do those things. I thought I never do those things because there’s always something else going on or kids to watch. Turns out I’m just boring. Even I was bored of being with me.
It would be easy to read this and think I’m depressed. I’m not (though maybe I should be). I’m just confused about my own behavior. I don’t know why I didn’t go do fun things. In the moment, nothing appealed to me. Maybe that’s all the reason I need, but it seems kind of lame.
One thing I can say for sure… my life is richer with my family around.
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sounds like you need to plan fun-time or you just won’t get around to it.
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Jeff says:
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:25 pm
This is likely the truth. Unfortunately that involves planning and commitment, which somehow usually fail to occur.
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I am crying. That was so funny, yet sad. The saddest part was that I too had some time away from the family when Karnia took the kids to the shore last week. I went out the first night to a bar with friends, but every day I after that I went through the same routine and thoughts you did, although instead of wings I went to DQ and got a blizzard… scary.
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Jeff says:
September 8th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
heh… very sad. Weren’t your parents there, though?
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