Home Improvement

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Another gorgeous day in St. Louis county.  Breezy air mixed with a light glow from the sun and an ever so perfect dying green.  It was a father and son day apparently, as my dad and I drove out for errands, including looking at the new house.

My parents decided that it would be a good idea to build a new house that is very nice and actually worthy of their salaries?  So we drive to the house and the construction is at the stage where enough frames have been put up to noticed the garage and basement but not enough to consider it a solid floor plan yet.  So we head on down around the back to the basement where it is dark and kind of relief and hide from the sun.  

My dad takes out his video camera and begins to record the empty basement.  I did not know why he was recording, but I figured that he sees something that I don't.  He records for a bit then turn the camera off and turns to me.  "Hey, this place is perfect for that library!  O, here, it's so nice to be able to have an entertainment center right here!  And over there, we can put the ping pong table!  We have so much room!"  Those words did not excite me one bit.  Those words did not excite a young male recent graduate from college looking for the city life in Manhattan, New York.  But I was smiling behind my father's back regardless.  I guess it was his smile as he said those things that made me smile the same.  I was not happy for us, but I was happy for him.  This was genuine, his wrinkles looked more pleasant now than the other set of wrinkles used for frowning.  This smile is rare or me, I don't get to witness it often, as he is bounded by the American corporate work force and driven home by his company to irritation.  He walks to our basement where he plans a new company's details with his friends and my mom, hoping to hit it big and quit his job.

I couldn't be happy for us.. It wasn't what I wanted at all, but it was what my dad wanted, and it was as if he had fulfilled some realistic dream.  I wondered.. wouldn't it be great if we could enjoy this and be happy together?  It was sad that my smile was for him and not us as a family.. I sometimes see the sports families where the father was a ex-pro and the son is now going to play college ball as a starter and they are eating at the same place my family is eating at, and they seem.. happy, together.  As my family sits at the table, all three of us, I can't help but think, why are they happier than we are?  Then I realized.. we are happy.  The coach dad pats the son on the back in a moment if frozen in time would make the next feel good Superbowl commercial, while mom sitting there starts to ask about my day at work, then move on and ask my father the same.  We were not happy like the other family, but we were happy, for each other.  We cared about eachother, maybe a little too much that sometimes my dad's a total douche bag about it.

Will my family ever be like any other?  I don't want to be like any other family.  This is me and these are my parents.  I want to live in the city, they want to live in a peaceful quiet place where you can hand out candy to the trick or treaters during Halloween.

I guess with the passing of my grandfather, I am finally feeling the circle of life calling me.  The force can be overwhelming, making you do things.. things you might regret the next day, but in 8 months, make you smile like you've never before and hate yourself for ever regretting what you did.  This subject makes me smirk.. just the idea of having a kid, simply because I know right now I'm set on not doing something "stupid".  But maybe someday?  The idea of 100% responsibility over another life, and the idea of knowing that as long as you love him, he will love you back is a little bit appealing.  Maybe when I am done traveling the world living my dreams, I will create life like I was born to do, because it would be a shame if I tried to live my dreams through him =)

Ignoring all the differences that "should" be there between parents and children, my smile for my father was the type that said: "I don't get why you are so happy, I couldn't see myself in your shoes, but it warms me that you are enjoying life".  Someday.. maybe.. i doubt it.. but maybe.. when I have my own child, and I could smile as a father and know that I am smiling for not just me but us.  

So as I smile.. at my father's enthusiasm towards planning the new unfinished, not even close to being completed, basement, I'm sure he's smiling behind my back too.

haha I thought this song would be appropriate LOL ^_~Vm
~ Click here to listen to the appropriate song ...