We got the house we always wanted but sometimes fantasized about having another, smaller one so we could re-experience life that way without the burden of having to do it full time. That happened on my morning walks to the lake past the big, lakefront place with the mother-in-law at the top of the driveway, a cheery green with warm, golden lights and a young couple squatting there for COVID with their parents in the main house on the lake. They had two dogs and looked healthy, like they didn’t have bad habits or kids like us. Bright and bubbly with their parkas in the pre-dawn dark with their dogs wearing glow-in-the-dark bracelets around their necks like you’d see at concerts or amusement parks. They had a small camper van by the mother-in-law too and probably traveled a lot, working high-paying consultant jobs for a few hours a day and then spending the rest of their time doing yoga or napping. Having dinner with the folks at the main house…a glass of wine, maybe two.

We could put up a structure like that too, we often dreamt, and if we did it would go on the sports court because the sports court felt lavish and bombastic and never got any real use. It was flat, big enough for a nice-sized cabin or art studio we could fix up with cots and wool blankets, maybe a small, wood-burning stove. The kids would want to use it with their friends and boyfriends of course and that would be problematic. We could put guests out there or my mom when she visits. And of course I could go there from time to time to hide.

Life was often somewhere else, it seemed. Detached units, dwelling structures. Looking back, but never quite finding it.

Categories: Memoir, prose, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, existentialism, mid-life crisis, stream-of-consciousness, William Pearse writer