Playing house at middle age
June 28th, 2007
My friends and I often talk about whether things are “real” or not. We’re not talking in the physical here, but more abstract: is a person real when they’re working at a summer job, or when they’re living in an apartment. What makes my full-time employment more “real” than somewhere and someone else? It’s a common subject among 20-somethings, especially those of us who are within a year or two since graduation.
Recently I’ve been feeling as if I’m not real, especially in my apartment… almost as if I’m just playing house. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not about to up and leave for the peace corps, nor do I feel any overall dissatisfaction. Quite the contrary; I’m quite happy with my work, my apartment, my friends. There are the usual family problems, but that’s even calming down.
At first, I thought it’s because my life is developing a sense of routine. I get up, I go to work, I come home, I go to bed. When I have free time at home, I cook and clean or I read a book or I walk around the neighborhood.
But then I realized that I haven’t even been in that routine for the past month and a half. It just feels like it. I’ve been doing a lot of things, spending even more time in Chicago than normal, and getting ready for the road trip out to Boston with Bryan and Chris.
Yet it permeates. I’m not unsettled by it, in fact I’m comforted by it. I’m nomadic at heart, and I’ve been in Milwaukee 11 months. I just renewed my lease for another year. It makes sense I’d feel like I’m playing house — my soul is always wondering, always exploring, always curious for what’s around the next bend.
Of course, the entire reason I wrote this is because I’m baking cookies. I mean, c’mon — how much more real does it get?
