What To Do?

Something drastic happened this week leaving me plagued with indecision.  My wife left me…and took the kids (most of them)…on vacation.

Heading to Kentucky, she and the book ends are attending her family reunion.  The middle child’s in East Texas with a couple of friends, jumping off cliffs into a mining pit and other things he’ll be too sane to do when his brain matures.  And I’m home…all alone.

If the last sentence made you sad, you don’t know me.  I love my family, but were it not for a bubbly personality and some well fitting gym shorts I’d be a reclusive bachelor today.  I don’t regret marrying and having children, best decisions I ever made, but deep within always lives a hermit.  And only on the rare occasion does he to be expressed for more than a few hours.

I had the weekend completely to myself.  It was spent in a recliner, strumming and watching TV shows; some awaiting me on DVR for weeks, others just discovered.  I’m almost caught up on “Doc Martin”, a British show about a man who embodies my antisocial ‘Mr. Hyde’.  I discovered a new reality, HGTV-esk show on TLC that has me fascinated, “Buying Naked”, about a real estate agent for nudist colonies (lots of pixelating).  All enjoyed to the softly rolling tunes of a 5-string banjo I’ve had and played since college but, except for my daughter, never in front of anyone.

Later today I pick up the East Texas cliff-diver.  He too possesses the inner-hermit.  Not to the extent that I do, but, certainly more than other 16-year-olds, he’s content to dwell in his own ‘alone but not lonely’ world.  We’ll acknowledge one-another as we pass, have supper together and spending an hour or so engaged in some sort of father-son bonding activity each day.  Beyond that we’ll do our own things, because that’s how we’re made…and because there’s no facilitator in the area.  That leaves about 22 hours a day of time to fill.

I’ll keep strumming the banjo to prerecorded television shows, but, after a couple days of sedentary relaxation, I need to move.  The garage needs cleaning, the driveway needs grading and bagworms need spraying, so I’m considering putting rails around the tree house (which is more a tree observation deck), planting love grass on the slope on the north side of the house or making a bridge to get out to the pond ‘deck’ (which would be a pond ‘dock’ if Mother Nature would loosen up and throw us a few more inches of rain). 

For whatever reason, doing what needs doing isn’t nearly so calming and enjoyable as doing something…anything else.  I have but a few precious weeks of vacation, so getting the needed chores done in a timely fashion is important, but so is relaxing, and I doubt my last words will have anything to do with prepping the driveway for gravel.  So the question remains: what to do?