I love Justinsomnia’s blog, and I’ve been reading with tremendous envy his recent chronicling of his hiking vacation through the U.S. Southwest. It…is…just…so…beautiful. And seems so much like a vacation.
T and I haven’t had a real vacation together–without family, without work getting sandwiched within it fairly noticeably–since our honeymoon in March 05. One of the hardest things about moving to where we now live is that there aren’t a lot of beautiful or interesting places to see within easy driving distance. I really wish we lived the kind of life in which we would pack up the two dogs, some camping gear, and some sandwiches and head out to explore, discover, and relax.
Instead, most of our time is spent reading, writing, grading, cooking subsistence food, watching tv, doing laundry, and taking care of other suburban household chores, like mowing the grass and changing the air filters. (As I type this list, I realize that recently T has really been in charge of all of these chores and household duties. He is incredibly supportive and generous with his time.)
It’s making me somewhat disgruntled, and I’m anxious for life to slow down just a little bit. And it should once I get back from this conference. I’ll be finished with my overload course, and my national conference paper will be done with. But I have a book proposal to face still and an unfathomable amount of grading.
I’m sick and tired of longing for a life that we don’t have. I suspect that, in fact, one basically has to decide to live that way–the spontaneous excursions to go out and see one’s local surroundings–and that I decide instead to focus on the little things that need to be done, almost in spite of myself. I worry that as I age I just become more humdrum, sedate, and bland, when really I don’t want to be.
I think you are right when you say that you just have to decide to live in the way you want to live… I think about this a lot, and somehow I feel like it gets to be more necessary to minimize that gap (between how you want to live and how you are) the older we get. Little things will never be completely settled (I say as I sit in the MESSIEST house ever, with dishes that haven’t been washed for 2 plus days and “clean” clothes in laundry hampers in the bedroom – ie. practically our whole wardrobe is there at this point) – but you guys SHOULD go on a vacation of some sort, or at least camping or hiking. I’m so glad J and I went to Maine this summer. It’s just fun, going somewhere together to enjoy the company and place.
Comment by maura — October 9, 2007 @ 1:33 pm