I was driving home from work the other day and pulled into my hometown and was hit with this amazing sense of happiness. Contentment. When I pulled into my driveway, I was so, so happy to be home. It wasn’t even because I was tired from the commute – 45 miles each way, Monday – Friday – because while I am generally tired OF the commute, I am not usually tired FROM it. In fact, I enjoy the drive home most days. Perhaps it is because I am ON the way home, but often I think it is because I can crank up my iPod and often roll down the windows and just drive really, really fast. Uh...I mean, drive within the proper boundaries of the posted speed limits because I’m a law-abiding citizen. Yeah. That’s what I mean! So while I greatly resent having to DO the commute, I can generally do it without too much issue, except when people just refuse to put their foot on the gas and DRIVE YOUR DAMNED CAR!! But that’s a story for another day…
My happiness in arriving home was a bit of a surprise because my house has been on the market for a year now and my plans are to sell it – maybe, eventually, someday!! – and move closer to work. Don’t misunderstand me; I happen to love my house. It’s a great old house, although it’s really too big for me. I have rooms I never use. My house is great for hosting parties and while I wish the yard was smaller and there was a porch on either the front or the back, it’s really a great house. If I could pick it up and move it closer to where I now work, I’d do it for sure. Especially because I detest the idea of having to pack my life into boxes again and move it somewhere new.
The location is great – I can walk to the community theatre in about 2 minutes which was especially nice when I actually had time to participate in shows – and nothing in town is really that far from anything else. The neighborhood is nice for taking long walks, which I do more for my mental than physical health. I also love that when I’m out walking (or at the grocery store or even stopped at a traffic light), I can easily run into people I know. I don’t necessarily know my immediate neighbors, but I know a lot of folks who live in my neighborhood. There is comfort in the familiarity of everything.
And that scares me. I think I fear the contentment. I fear that it will lead to complacency and stagnation and eventually contempt. Contempt for what I will have become. For what I will have been able to accept. For you see, there is nothing left for me in that town. Nothing that I can see at least. While my father is there, he is not a young man and if I stay put for him, what happens when he is gone? My house is great, but there are other great houses in the world. My job isn’t there and while the theatre is still there and I love and adore that place, I no longer have time to give to it to nurture that love. When I AM there, it makes me sad that I can’t be there more often. I do have some friends there, but again, most of those have fallen away in the past year or so. It really started before I got my current job, but my lack of time doesn’t help. I honestly haven’t figured out how people do a long commute and still have a life. Maybe it’s because I am single and am not used to juggling having another person in my life or having children who take priority over things like sleep. All I want to do when I get home is eat dinner (the eating is frequently optional) and then get as much sleep as I can so I can start the long day all over again.
It makes me sad that I can’t figure out a better balance and how to have a life. I need some resolution to what is going on in my life. This is one area I’ve been praying about for a while now and the only thing that God has said is, “It’s not going to be that easy.” As in, if my house was going to sell and I could just pack up and move to another house in another city, then that would have happened already. But God says it is not going to be that easy. Oh great. You mean it’s going to get harder? More challenging? Fun. Just what I wanted. But God doesn’t always give us what we WANT, He gives us what we NEED. And those two things don’t always correspond.
When I arrive home tonight, I’ll be glad. Happy to be driving through my town; happy to be walking into my house where everything is familiar. But I still wonder if deep inside of me a small part of my soul isn’t dying. Or at least crying. I could stay – WOULD stay – for the right reasons, but I’m not even sure what those reasons might be (or more, I refuse to give voice to them - I can think of several things). Maybe that is all part of the challenge I feel coming my way. God said it’s not going to be that easy and I believe Him. It’s not that easy NOW. I just hope it’s going to hurry up and get here. I'm ready to move forward.
2 comments:
I am with you on the commute. By the time I get home, I want to fall into bed. But, I manage to make plans in DC or places nearby or I just leave work early since I have a flex schedule because I plan on enjoying every minute of being single able to do anything I want whenever I want. The next morning though.... that's painful. :/
I have nights like this where I need to come home and workout because I did not workout this morning and my yoga class at work was canceled. But here I sit on the internet reading e-mails and not working out. If I had gotten home earlier, I'd have had less of an excuse and more time. Unfortunately, I'm not like you - I just sleep as much as possible instead of having fun! LOL
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