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The road taken

Yesterday, Donna wrote a very thoughtful post about the road taken and the road not taken with the path she and Noel have gone down. Coming from the perspective of being married with children, there are plenty of trade-offs. Sure, there might be less opportunity to ride rollercoasters around the country, take in ball games around the country, or going out to the movies regularly, but like my sister and brother-in-law say, the emotional rewards of being married and raising children are plenty.

The deal is, this way of life is the complete opposite of what my day-to-day life is. As great as it may be, there's plenty that isn't great.

I've known people who would like weeks, even months, off from their day-to-day life. The deal is, I highly, highly doubt these people would really know what to do with all this time off. On top of that, trying to adjust to a different schedule would not be easy. You might miss the crap, but you'll miss the great stuff too.

As it has been made abundantly clear to me since Jason moved out two weeks ago, I don't like living alone. I'm looking forward to my new housemate moving in at the beginning of July, but until then, it's a big quiet house. I've lived alone in a small, cramped apartment before, and it's essentially the same feeling. I like having people I like around. The loner mentality I have was a lot easier to play into when I lived with my parents. Thankfully, I'm in no rush to move back home.

There is plenty in my life that is great. There's plenty of flexible time to do whatever I want to, like write books, listen to a lot of music, watch DVDs, surf the Internet, and so on. If it's a Saturday night and I don't have plans, if I want to play Madden '09 for two hours and then go out to the movies, that's my call. If I want to stay up until 4am working on a show write-up and then sleep until noon, that's my call. But as great as free time is, I think there are drawbacks to having too much free time. I know this all too well.

The hope for my future is that I can still do all the things I do now, but sharing them with others in a homelife situation. Whether that just means a spouse or a spouse with children, my desire is to improve my life, not take away the things I love just for the sake of falling in line with adulthood.

Comments

Nick / Dogme 95 said…
hey homey... sorry i have been on the other side of the planet. but i really miss hanging out and hope we can catch a show or film soon. being married and having the kids in town has been very busy. but very inspiring too. watching garfield and ghostbusters is kind of fun with them. but i will tell you enjoy the free time you have. I get about 1 hour a day max to do Nick things. but i hope the best. BTW we close on a new house in Wylie next week. Its brand new. Really not that far, maybe 5 min from Firewheel. Thank god they have a Glorias, Half Price and Movie Trading Company out there. It makes it ok. Miss ya and keep rockin, Nick

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