Still Right Here

I found myself running errands alone a few nights ago. Car after car linked together on the main thoroughfare with the rush of post-workday traffic. Without hurry, I decided to take the winding side roads that lead through the suburbs. The sun barely touched the western horizon, on its inevitable path to recede from my field of vision.

The neighborhood I drove through spanned a few miles of well-kept middle-class homes. Looking out my windows I saw tiny slivers of life that seem to hold very little depth when taken at face-value. It’s like reading the end of a novel before you read the beginning, and being unable to watch the steps it takes for the characters to end up at the finality that the reader is left with. A black lab sitting in his driveway, sullen until he can go back inside. Three young siblings on bikes circling closer to the road with every pass. A younger couple unloading groceries from their jeep into the house. A pair of older men drinking beer on the porch, in the midst of a clearly hilarious conversation. Neighbors doing yard work, exchanging periodic small talk over imaginary divides. Like a stained-glass window, each of these multihued shards come together as bits of the same lifestyle being told many times over; congregating together without any of the players actually realizing it.

Other people’s lives just give me glimpses, but I seek my place in this as well. The most common theme of my life so far has been waiting for domesticity. I long for the moments when girlfriend becomes wife, apartment becomes home, and self becomes family. I want to have a place to call our permanent home and raise kids. I want to have hasty breakfasts together before we realize we’re all late, and leave work early to go to piano recitals. I want to play fetch with the dog and mow the lawn for the hundredth time. I want to sit under a tree with my wife on summer nights to watch the fireflies, and plan elaborate treasure hunts for my kids to find their birthday presents. I want to stand in the front yard watching the storms roll in, and put up the Christmas tree together while the snow covers the ground under the moonlight.

Life’s funny isn’t it? Despite our best-laid plans, it still never seems to turn out how we want. Ever feel like you’re just trapped in circumstance? As time goes on, all these temporary lifestyle changes I’ve been making have become more permanent. This week marks the first time since high school that I’ve lived in one place for a whole year, and soon I’ll be leaving here too. Though I’m not sure exactly where or when, yet. And even then, it’ll just be another temporary place until I can afford a house. I have my own blind faith that those dreams will be fulfilled in the distant future, but at what point do I stop racing against the hands of the clock? At what point do I acknowledge that every time the sun goes down, it feels like it’s beaten me somehow? There’s something to be said about being assertive, but it doesn't seem like assertiveness would fix this. I still need to wait for circumstance to let me be free. I can’t get a house until I know where it needs to be, which I won’t know until I know what’s happening with work, versus dog-training and the stock market, and where Lia will end up working once she graduates. Until then, the days pass, and I guess I just have to be patient.