5 Anticipations

Here’s a list of things that I’m looking forward to experiencing one day. Yes, as my kids would say, I’m in a mood today.

1. Being relevant. For 10 years I’ve chanted like an old LP with a scratch, “No food downstairs,” or “No food at the computer.” And there sits a bag of chips on a chair downstairs that’s next to the chair in which the 11-year-old is spinning around and from which he’s obliviously bumping the bag of chips on each turn.
2. Walking on floors. It’s been years, I think, since I walked on a floor. I walk on pillows. I walk on blankets. I walk on game console controllers. I walk on DVDs and CDs. I walk on action figures. I walk on other people’s shoes. I walk on coats and sweaters and backpacks. I think I may enjoy walking on floors one day.
3. My own room to share with my wife (or her own room to share with me, either way). I think it would be nice to have a square foot or two that’s mine and to which I can retreat to relax. My bedroom is also the first aid center, the TV to which the 5-year-old tries to lay claim when the other siblings have tied up the other TVs and the computers, the hair drying/straightening/combing/brushing salon, laundry folding station, wrapping paper storage, and general storage unit.
4. Closed doors. It’s really quite stunning how difficult it apparently is to close an outside door. When I’ve not been chanting “No food…,” I’ve been chanting, “Close the door.”
5. Extinguished lights. And when I’ve not been chanting, “No food…, ” or “Close the door,” I’ve been turning off lights. Some days when I work from home, I’ll wander upstairs after the kids have all gone to school. I’m the only one home. Every light and lamp in the house is on. Every single one.

Now, I’m told by those who’ve walked this path already that I may actually miss some of these things. It is perhaps true. But just once. Just once, I think I’d like to walk on a floor, in my room, with the doors closed, and the lights off.