My swimming pool of life

 On October 23, 2013 I wrote this in my journal:

Looking in windows on my night walk on a dark, wet, chilly night.  First, I see a pudgy man, balding, setting a table in a kitchen. Set look on his face... not -a-smile, but a "pleasant" look set for waiting rooms and client meetings. Next block I see into a dim dining room ... bloated big hair matron sit across from husband -- bulky -- in a house with a sizable addition.  This is the Sponge Bob house - where I see SB on a huge screen TV at 6:30 every ay that I ride my bike to work.  They look like they're both doing work -- across from each other... kids in addition watching the megascreen. 

Suddenly this is the place that I live. This is my swimming pool of life, like Mt Prospect was/is the world of mom and dad.  This is the place that I will exist -- like the first man I saw -- neither enjoying or not enjoying -- but with a mask of domesticity.  And this is the place that after working hard on "earning an addition," you sit in work clothes and slippers extending your work day into the night while the kids aneasthesize themselves in the next room.

 I was walking at night and looking into (literally!) the lives of my neighborhood.  I see dulled people, people devoting their home time to work (while kids space out in front of "megascreen."  

The realization was that I am living in that "swimming pool," too.  There's a sense of awareness: this is where I am, there is where I'm headed.  Probably the swimming pool is a reference to Ani DiFranco's "Little Plastic Castles."

I've been copying my 2013 journals into my massive "DRL history" file.  I find that there's no time to come up for air: kids soccer practices and games, my HW (sometimes small bits, sometimes 2 hour chunks of grading), my domestic chores, menus, cooking, tiny bit of guitar (I think I'm doing guitar lessons with Jason at this time).  All of October 2013 is playing on those few notes repetitively.  (Correction: I do take family to Gov Dodge for Columbus Day.).  

Connection to now: I do a LOT less HW than I did (though I do continue to bring schoolwork home to do... I just don't do it very often!). I do a LOT less schlepping kids around.  My after schools and weekends are MOSTLY mine.  Thinking about ten years later -- new house, divorce, marriage.  Major life changes...  I spend a lot more time cooking, having coffee with Jennie.

related to: critique of suburbs, realization of limited life, being over busy, life satisfaction, life purpose