Spending time with my nieces and nephews is one of my favorite ways to pass my days off. You might think that after days of working with my kids at work that the last thing I would want to do on my days off is be around other children, but that’s not the case at all.
In fact, I wouldn’t even mind the company of my work kids on my days off if it wasn’t for the fact that they are so used to me meeting their needs when I am with them that I wouldn’t be able to relax. But hanging out with my family is completely different.
For instance, this morning when I woke up on my sister’s couch to my four year old nephew asking for a drink of water I didn’t curse out loud or even in my head. I got up and got him a drink of water and then I talked to him and he made me smile.
Part of the problem is that I’ve lived with so many of my family’s kids and now I miss them all the time, but part of is just that I don’t have to do things for them but they still want me to and hat makes me happy.
We hung out at Brianne’s house all morning and I barely moved from the couch until 11 o’clock. When we did get into gear it was to have lunch with my mom and then shop a bit.
I haven’t been in a Target in forever, not because there aren’t any in New York but because there aren’t any in New York that are in the vicinity of places I like to go on my days off. One of my biggest complaints about the greater New York area is that it takes SO LONG to from store to store unless they are adjacent inside on large complex. So I stick to my favorites and whatever happens to be next door to them.
But I got to Target today and spent less than ten dollars (go me!) and I also got a peek at the Stroud Mall, the mall I grew up avoiding.
It has undergone several years of renovation since my childhood. I remember a day probably 11 or 12 years back when some genius thought carpeting would be a good idea, They put actual carpet down in the big open wing of the mall and then let the public walk on it for ten plus years.
Gross, right?
It’s gone now and so is the movie theater that plagued Stroud Township and the surrounding Burroughs. I don’t know when exactly it opened up, although a small Google search can probably answer that question, but I know by the time I was a teenager it was layered in everlasting stickiness and the chairs were all broken. There were no cup holders and the screens were not equipped for all the mega-tech stuff they can do in movies now.
My friends and I used to drive 40 minutes outside of town to see anything.
In place of the old theater, a shiny, giant new cinema now occupies an entire wing of the mall.
Talk about not being able to go home again.
I have remarked to my family members before that every time I go back there something is different. Buildings burned down, stores close, stores move, new places open up and flop and vanish again. Today I found out that the train depot that was a restaurant for years and burnt down a while back has been hefted up, lifted across the tracks and now sits there, still near its home along the train track, rotting.
Times. Have. Changed.
To make myself feel even older I have been thinking a lot about actual serious things lately.
Act One of getting my life together was acquiring this job. I am now six months in and almost finished with Act Two: getting out of debt. By my one year anniversary at this job I will be debt free and dancing in the streets.
But right after that dance celebration I have to start thinking about the actual real future. MY actual real future, And while T is living under the delusion that my future is forever entwined in hers, I have some other opinions on the matter.
I’m so excited by how God has changed my life in one half year. I can’t wait to see what’s next and I am already struggling with my old desire to get on with it and see what’s next. I’m itching.
To scratch my itch I am focusing on the good times I am having now, in NYC and at home.
I spent this evening spoiling myself with my favorite dinner companion and we stuffed ourselves at THE best restaurant I’ve been to since…well, Thanksgiving. I can’t ever complain for lack of fine dining, but I will say that the food tonight would rival ANYTHING found in New York and it was right here (well, back there -- I am on the bus steadily getting further from home) in the Poconos, tucked away in the Delaware Water Gap.
It was amazing and this trip was a monstrous success.
And now we play the running from station to station game to see if I can get home by midnight.
Ready…GO!
No comments:
Post a Comment