I hadn’t realized just how much my home in Not Quite Richmond, CA was affecting my mood until we got home yesterday, and I felt the lightness of spirit which I had enjoyed throughout my familial sabbatical just melt away beneath the all-too-clement weather and the same old nonsense resurrected (which had lain quiet and unmolested since our journey had begun). The arguments and ill will have soaked into the walls, and reinforce the cycle of discontent with every breath that’s drawn. And there’s something about this apartment that just knocks me out. A sort of lethargy comes upon me, and I find it difficult to maintain even the briefest consciousness. Our smoke detectors are also carbon monoxide detectors, and they haven’t been going off, but I know that I usually felt better when I left the apartment for any length of time, and just died when I came back.

This week is pretty much a wash, as I need to settle in to my role as personal chef here at home, and morning escort to school for my son. And then there’s football this weekend… We’re doing well enough that I’ve got a little wiggle room, but I’ll probably have to start looking for a part time job next week. After a decade in restaurant management, I’d like to ease myself into something less stressful and all-consuming (says the writer, typing), but I know that whatever I choose, I’ll probably seek out more responsibility (and money) before too long. I miss the paychecks of my last job, but not the constant worry about the restaurant. It’s nice to think, for at least a little while, that I when I clock out, the job will clock out with me, and I can go back home and not have to think about it.

I’m sitting here next to an open window to ward off somnolence, and it’s not really that effective. I’d like to just curl back up under the covers and sleep for the next week and a half. I probably shouldn’t, though. I’m fairly certain that an extended bout of hibernation wouldn’t do me any good, and I’m equally as sure that my wife wouldn’t tolerate that level of concerted shiftlessness. The last time I had this much “free time” to myself was the summer of 2008, when I stayed at home with David William and introduced him to the universe of Star Trek and Doctor Who. He was only one at the time, and easily entertained. It did making smoking harder, though. He never quite understood that I would be right back, and the more he began freaking out, the more I needed a cigarette. We made it work, though.

Now I’ve got my grandson to keep me distracted and not writing. I’m so grateful to be his grandpa for the duration of his Terrible Twos. I can just enjoy him when he wants to be personable, and when he wants to throw a fit, I can pass him back to Mommy. There are definitely advantages to marrying a woman with an almost fully grown child. With our son, she’s had her two, and isn’t pressuring me for a matching set. Also, that David was born 12 pounds by non-caesarean methods, and has been (according to my mother) the spitting image of me in terms of behavior and personality, I think my wife has decided that she daren’t risk another. For myself, I find it easier to enjoy our children knowing that when we’re done, we’re done, and can get on with being old people.

I think that’s what I’m truly looking forward to: spending the twilight of my life with someone whom I truly love, who truly loves me in return. It wouldn’t surprise me to accept the fact that I’ve probably been attracted to women a number of years older than me so that I have someone who will understand that, beneath the pretense of my chronological age, sits a grumpy man, wrapped up in eld, shouting at the world to get the hell off of his lawn. My wife says that she wants a refund; that I tricked her into marriage because she assumed I’d be more full of life. I just chuckle every time she brings it up, give her a hug, and tell her, “No refunds, no exchanges.” She scowls, then, and continues on in Spanish, explaining at some great length the penalty for fraud, all the while trying to conceal the twinkling in the corner of her eye that lets me know that she only sort of means it. She is the one that I’ve been looking for as long as I can remember, and though we have our ups and downs, I wouldn’t give her up for anything. Most of the time. There are a few occasions where I’d like to run off to a studio apartment by myself and live a life unfettered by domestic compromise and pants.

This March will see our sixth wedding anniversary, and this April will mark our ninth year together. It’s taken us a while to figure out who we are and who we are together, and just now, we are finally learning to build a life with one another, and do things as a team. It’s easy after almost a decade to want the butterflies of someone new, the thrill of some kind of fresh romance, but I’ve discovered that it’s exponentially more satisfying to fall in love again and again with the woman I chose to spend my life with. We still argue, as I enjoy it, and we’ll always have divergent points of view, but the arguments no longer carry the weight of matrimonial failure: we’re comfortable enough with one another that the threat of divorce has been taken off the table, and we can have it out in safety. In short, we’ve learned how to agree to disagree, and how to pave it over when we do. I love my wife more every day, and look forward to tomorrow.

 

-Tex