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On parents and aging …

When I was a little boy I wanted to marry my mom. I think alot of little boys want to do that. They see their moms as perfection. She cooks for them, she cleans for them, she plays with them and gets them stuff. Of course we all grow up and figure out that while we love our moms to death, we sure as hell dont want to marry them.

My mom is quite amazing, if I say so myself. I dont think I truly understood it growing up, but now that I’m out on my own and can look at her from afar, it truly amazes me at what she’s accomplished. My parents divorced when I was two – my sister was one – and my mom was left with two kids, no job and the house. My father pretty much disappeared from the scene, except for the occasional (read as once every three or four years) visit.

Through all that mom made it work. Making hardly any money at all, she always managed to get us what we needed, whether for school or to eat, and even managed to get a few vacations in there from time to time. It’s just hard to imagine sometimes. I mean, I’m making more than she ever made during those years and the thought of having to pay for two kids along with a house payment, food, bills and vacations just throws me into fits of exhaustion. But somehow, mom made it work. And I’m proud of her. I really am.

Thats probably one of the big reasons I’m over at the house so much, doing what I can to help her get her house finally in order. See, what makes her happy is getting the house in shape. It’s been a project that’s lasted about twenty years now, and finally we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. And now, I’m at the point where I just want it finished so that she can finally enjoy the house without spending another weekend working on it. I think she deserves it.

But along those lines, it makes me think about what my life will be like. I mean the days and months go by so quickly these days and sometimes it feels like I’m just going through the motions without taking time to take it all in and enjoy it. I go to work, I come home and cook dinner, I shower and go to bed and then it starts all over again. I’m even finding work more and more boring. I mean, I can do the job but it’s boring as hell and I definately can’t see myself doing this for another 35 or so years. I need stimulation and interaction. I need to be creative and be challenged. I dont get any of this at this particular job, but I’ll stay with it long enough to pay my bills off and until the economy settles down a bit. My worry is that I’ll get stuck – that just staying with it long enough will turn into twenty or thirty years. And then at the age of 50 or 60, I’ll wake up one day and realize that I spent my life doing a job I hated.

We all get caught up in it. My mom tells me all the time that she wishes she’d been able to have a fun, creative job but had to take random boring jobs just to make ends meet. She’s done data entry for the stock exchange, and then for United Artist Theatres, and then moved on to the healthcare industry. I think she’s finally in a position that she’s happy with – being the supervisor for a small staff. She gets to leave at 2PM and enjoy the rest of the day.

Although, I know my mom did what she needed to do to make our lives better, she also spent alot of years struggling and we spent alot of lean years to get where we are at. I know that I dont want to repeat that cycle. Now dont get me wrong, I dont think money is where it’s at. But I do know that happiness is where it’s at. I dont want to spend the bulk of my life, working somewhere that I dont enjoy going to every day. My last job was one I can truly say that I loved waking up in the morning to go to, and staying late was more fun than work. At my current job, I dread waking up in the morning and staying late is out of the question. I go in, do my job, and leave at 5PM on the dot. I stay, hoping that in a year I can possibly transfer to another department with more creativity – and because I need a paycheck.

Needing a paycheck sucks. Having to rely on some corporation to pay you for services rendered sucks. Doing a routine job that you hate, sucks. And so I wait for Wifey™ to get here and start her career, and then hopefully each of us will take some courses and get closer to things we enjoy. Wifey™ would like to take some courses to go from being a Pharmacy Tech to becoming am actual Pharmacist – which I would totally support. I would like to try to figure out what would make me happy. I’ve worked for large companies for far too long and am realizing that they dont really care about you and that you arent really making a difference in the world – except to make more money for a large company. Doing alot of soul searching, I’m finding that I want to make a difference somehow. I’ve given thought to a career in teaching and am really heading in that direction. Over the years, I’ve had many many people tell me I should. Perhaps, we’ll see.

Decision need to be made. And at some point, I’ll make one. What’s funny is how fast time goes by. I mean, if you are waiting for something, it goes by pretty slowly, but when you look back, its just amazing at how fast it goes by and how hard it is to remember how you spent that time. It’s something my mom tells me all the time. She can’t believe that she’s in her 50’s, she can’t believe she’s lived in that house for over 20 years, and she can’t believe how fast time goes by.

Where does it go? And how scary it is that it really does go by so quickly. What I do know is that I want to spend that time enjoying myself. I want to go to work knowing that I’m touching someone’s life and making a mark on my own. And I want the remainder of my life to be something I can look back on and be proud of.

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