I've been trying to remember what the younger version of myself thought adult life would be like. I think what prompted this was a certain person in this house informing me she would be out on her own in three years, living in her own place, and fairly independent. And I do know for a fact that I had those same thoughts, if not at that age, then slightly younger.
Ha. It took a bit longer than that, and a certain bit of "glamor" I thought might be present typically isn't, but yeah, I got there.
Here's an example of that complete lack of glamor. Right now, I'm sitting in the laundry room monitoring the washing machine, watching for a reported "it's not spinning" problem. I'm doing this because a) we need clean clothes, b) the washer is the best means we have to make that happen, c) the machine is at least ten years old and thus could theoretically go at any time, and d) if there's a problem, it needs to be addressed pretty quickly given a) and b). These are facts, nothing glamorous about them; and no romanticizing about it "being my own place" will change them one iota.
A lot of the time, life is largely logistics and problem management.
I worked half the day today, the latter half, because Charleston's first decent snowstorm of the season blasted through yesterday. It left the hill at the top of the neighborhood impassable in the morning. I ended up working while at home too, SpongeBob blaring away and the kids going wild while I wrote a new module of code and uploaded it. Yes, I enjoyed doing it, but that's beside the point. Ultimately, it just needed to be done and I was the guy to do it.
This evening, after staying late to make sure I did indeed get in that half day (to conserve vacation days for when they're actually going to be used for their namesake), I came home to a round of evening chores — guide the kids in the direction they needed to go (a bit easier than usual with it being a snow day), get some bread started, chase the cat out of the kitchen garbage a few times (which went on most of yesterday evening too), give up and take said garbage to the can outside because the cat is damned persistent, and fiddle with the aforementioned washer.
And tomorrow, unless the snow flares up again, it's back to school for everyone, back to a full day of work, the usual rhythm and grind.
I don't think the younger version of myself saw any of this. I suspect the vision was a little more fantastic. While fantastic this is not, it could be a hell of a lot worse. I've lived that life too, had four dollars to my name and an empty cupboard and rent to pay. Even with that, compared with much of the world, better to be a poor man in America, right? Maybe being a working class hero isn't too bad.
The washer, by the way, appears to be fine.