Suburbs. Suburbs with a posh/country flair.
I was raised in the country. I was raised on a five acre farm just outside the city limits of the town in which I currently reside. As a child, I had enough land in my "possession" that I was effectively king of the world. Catapults, BB guns, firecrackers, and death defying leaps abounded in my domain.
At some point after I left for college, the world shrank. In California, land is much less abundant than it had seemed in my youth. The vast spaces surrounding towns, entreating adventure and exploration, have yielded to condominiums and high end gated communities. The ranch house in which I grew up, has since become the property of strangers. (Mind you, I still claim the rights to the untold treasures and Time capsules left my my 10 year old self.) In c, I have been unaffected by these changes. Land means little to a college student; one who sleeps in the college foundry in order to maximize his opportunity to weld, and to generally explore the concept of global domination as an art form.
In, the last few years, I've been equally free from the burden of the encroaching picket fences. As I've been exploring vocations, and building up a bank of skills in a move towards self sufficiency, I've had the luxury of living in Santa Barbara. Claustrophobia is seldom able to exert its wrath when one is always no less than 5 minutes from an ocean or 15 minutes from a network of serpentine trails. I have lived in houses ready for demolition, and in a van, yet I have continuously had the luxury of freedom and space. Seriously, for the last year, I've been blessed by being able to wake up in the morning and look out over the ocean, before even pulling myself out of bed. It has been good.
And now, for the time being, I find myself in the town of my youth. I'm helping family to get life organized and get back on their feet. I currently provide daycare for my younger sisters four children. This can be great. Kids are fun. And by definition, uncles are the greatest force on earth. In their eyes, by my very nature, I am able to undertake any herculean task set before me. And, though they remain steadfast in the conception that I am as bullet proof as Superman, they assert that even Kryptonite is useless against me. I am the bronze visage of grand uncle-ness, strewing about snack packs and juice laden sippy-cups. I am, as they say in France, "The Man".
But alas, I know this is not a life that will long satisfy. I love these children, and I love my family, but I don't think that I'll be able to stay as long as they'd hope. The average suburban life kills a man like me. Though I still believe I am where I'm supposed to be right now, there is little adventure in the routine journeys to elementary and preschools. There is little space in a house filled with stuffed animals and admittedly cool Tonka toys. I've been finding that I end up with neither the time nor space to build and create in the way that has always brought me satisfaction.
These last few months have confirmed in me something that I have always known about myself; That I can't lead what has become the archetype of the standard American life. In the very least I need to live a life that is radically different from what has become the social norm. At the most, I need to shake what's me to its foundations. I am meant to make stuff. In what I believe to be the biblical understanding that each person is designed with purpose and intent, I want to be who I was designed to be. I know that I think differently than most around me. I am meant to imagine and do things that others can't or won't. I am meant to give sacrificially of my time monies and energy, as a gift to God, and as a testimony to what He has done in my life and my heart. I am meant to live a life that few others would be willing to lead.
I don't know if this would ever include a family. Admittedly, it would be amazing to find a wife and partner that's equally unwilling to settle. It would be great to have someone to share adventure with. It would be awesome to have someone who echoed my maniacal mindset, where we spurred each other on. There seems to be a lot more that can be done by two then by one. Maybe I'm meant for singleness, and an array of like-minded friends that can share and partner in various parts of my life and adventures. Maybe I just need to trust my own innate abilities, and have faith God's power to accomplish things in/through me that seem far outside of what I can accomplish. It would be awesome to have kids someday; to see the generational sin and dysfunction that has plagued my family end with me. Maybe it's enough to support my brother and sister as they raise their children; to pray for and encourage them and their kids as much as I can. Maybe it's as much as I can handle.
It's amazing how so much of life can be clear and unclear at the same time. It's easy to know the type of man I am supposed to be and the kind of life that I am meant to lead. Yet the details of this life are little more than conjecture and desire. I have a vision and a dream for the rest of my life, yet it seems so far from where I am right now. And so, I have to face each day with faith. I have to ask God where I am supposed to be, and what I am supposed to be doing, what dreams to plan for, and which ones to leave by the wayside or to faithfully give up to Him. Every day I need to faithfully move toward who I believe I was designed to be, while having the patience to live a life that I hadn't expected to be living.
I don't know what my life will look like in a few months or a year. Plane tickets beckon me towards other continents. I daydream of desert hideaways and building robots and sculpture from junked cars and aircraft. I imagine living out of a boat or truck, leading an untethered life, and selling my skills in the trades, or numbering among the few nomadic web designers. My heart longs for a workshop, where I can make and sell sculpture, and custom designed lighting, and whatever creations will pay the bills; a place where I can potentially teach others my skills and desire for adventure; where I can offer a few kids an alternative to smoking pot, and loitering, and a bleak future of retail or food service jobs that will never really pay the bills.
And every day, I have to pray for the patience to wait, and for the strength to do what I'm doing to the best of my ability, and for the wisdom to know when to take the next step, whatever it is. Life is hard, but it is good. Even in the suburbs. But I will never, never drive a minivan.
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