Some Hearts Roam and Some Find Home

Barbecues, Ballgames, & Riding the Range

My Fear of Being Normal

I remember being in 9th grade, sitting in class one day, horrified. We were doing one of those little surveys to find out what each person was most likely to do as a job. In other words, the question was: What will you be when you grow up?

Sadly, quizzes like this never offered results like kind, thoughtful, passionate, content, respected, or even “debt free.”

I was frightened for two reasons. First, I never liked being forced to think about the future. It provided no comfort. Instead, I imagined new worlds I had not yet entered that would be just as puzzling and nauseating as the one called high school. So, if my present was confounding, the culture of working adults might be even worse.

Back then, optimism was only a rumor people on television mentioned from time to time.

The second reason is more important than the first. I knew enough of work to fear it. The prospect of a regular job, 9 to 5, in some remorseless office or factory, probably among people I did not understand, haunted me.

There was nothing worse than believing graduation would usher in a new era of hellish monotony as some worker ant. It was a life sentence. Honestly, I could not fathom how people lived this nightmare as their reality for years, and years, and more years.

Of all the bad stuff I assumed was to come, I especially dwelled on the awful sameness of living a workaday lifestyle. By sameness I mean showing up at the same place and performing the same repetitive tasks, daily. Then, there was something worse than that in my extremely naive (although I was right) mind.

We see a procession of ants and they are indistinguishable from one another. This is what modern wage labor does to human beings. For whatever reason, I despaired at the likelihood of becoming just another nobody doing thankless work. No identity. No passion. Surely this must be a punishment, I reckoned.

There were few options in a small town. Even back then, I was aware of the limitations of my environment.

The Road Not Taken

My mental health support group inspired all this remembering of things long ago. Please stay with me, dear reader. There is at least one conclusion from all this and perhaps more than one.

There is a small room, a table, chairs, and usually about 4-8 people. Every participant, before the official beginning of the meeting, talks about the past week and any hardships that might be on our minds.

For the most part, what you hear is about the same. There are problems with husbands, wives, and most of all, kids. This might be actual children or the grown-up kind of kids.

Also, there is plenty of commentary about money as in needing more of it. Why? Other than the obvious, my peers want more hours, a different job, or a better boss, because they are supporting others—mostly their offspring. But, when it is my turn to speak, I stand out from the crowd.

I do not have kids to support. My concerns are not the same as the others in the room. Usually, my head is in the clouds worrying about leading a full and meaningful life. Why? It must be my destiny to always be different; from the 9th grade all the way to the present.

But, the question of right now is: Should I consider myself lucky, or unlucky? This is the primary thinking exercise for today. Also, to me, this question is important to my present and future.

No burdens. This idea is very attractive. It reminds some people of the f-word (freedom). Yes, having no alimony payments, mouths to feed, college to pay for, and no overwhelming debt, are all good things. That is true on the face of it, anyway.

That 15-year-old kid pondering his future would be pleased by this outcome. After all, responsibilities are the reasons people work themselves to the bone and consent to lives as worker ants. Others rely on them. Thus, I can now see how the boy’s apprehension led to the man’s life so far.

At my support group and everywhere else, I hear people remark about making employment choices based only on the money. It must be this way to survive, and contentment and job satisfaction are never a subject to consider. When one commits to leading a family, then we might argue that certain options are no longer on the table.

We are not supposed to think that way. Any age is the right age to start or stop doing something. I am curious, though, if we believe this as much as we advertise it as the right thing to believe in.

The Home Life and the Free Life

As I continue asking and answering my own unresolved questions, I must consult entertainment. Stories, I mean. About every week, I am reminded of the power of stories (movies and books) and how they have influenced my peculiar life.

People we know, the media, entertainment, and other sources I cannot think of right now, regularly present us with a choice between two worlds. I am calling one the home life and the other the free life.

A desirous home life almost always includes close bonds with a spouse and children. The word comfort comes to my mind. Stability is another one.

A free existence satisfies human beings’ want for complete independence. Such a life might be full of thrills and exploration. Mobility is a keyword. Adventure might fit.

I could talk all day about Westerns, but I will keep this section of my story brief. Westerns provide the most American setting for storytelling, and there are a few themes that reemerge over and over in them.

One is the tension between spending one’s days riding the countryside free as a bird versus settling down to stay. Almost always, a man must decide to continue his wild ways or commit to a woman. And we know entering a relationship will mean children. Then, children lead to a homestead, steady employment, and curtailing any dangerous habits like hard drinking, gambling, and fighting.

Should we roam free like mustangs or habitualize ourselves to the security of corrals and fences? The issue has been stated using various metaphors and words.

Men in the older Westerns, it seems to me, could not be tamed. They preferred the wanderlust of a rough-and-tumble existence, but I have not done any research to know for sure.

I still am considering if I am lucky or unlucky. I hope there is time enough left to still control my destiny. Also, I now turn to a different type of film that raises the issue of the home vs the free.

Barbecues and Ballgames

The most talked about scene in the classic film Heat is the restaurant conversation between actors Al Pacino and Robert Deniro. Pacino plays a family-man cop (though that family is in shambles) chasing Deniro’s character who is a master criminal.

Their short exchange is somewhat friendly with each acknowledging the other’s role in this cat and mouse game. At one point, Pacino asks his foe if he ever dreamed of a lifestyle different from the one he is living: always on the run, looking over his shoulder, without permanent ties.

Hanna (Pacino) says, “So you never wanted a regular-type life?”

Neil’s (Deniro) answer is sardonic and meant to mock the bland lifestyle most people live. He replied, “What the f##! is that? Barbecues and ballgames?”

The title of the movie refers to the pressure a lawbreaker feels when the police are chasing him down. As Neil stated, he must always be ready to abandon friends, family, home, and literally all else when the heat becomes too much.

Well, the movie does not offer any final resolution. We should feel conflicted about pursuing one life over the other. I mean, I expect thinking folks to question and find fault with the home and the free.

No one wants to feel like they have been cheated out of the slightest measure of life’s rewards.

The search for Home has been a guiding light of my existence, but I have this calling to make art, think, be authentic, and occasionally flip the world the finger. I love and hate this world.

At this point, you might have gathered the impression that my version of the free life is sailing the seas, traveling to the great places, skydiving, swimming with sharks, and whatever else we might call thrilling. No, that is not my kind of free life. If it is yours, then that is fine and dandy.

My Version of the Free Life

Thinking is what makes some of us feel whole. Thrills are short-lived and decrease in force the more one chases them. Addiction taught me that much, and more.

Now I must offer something approaching a solution to my dilemma and a response to the central theme of this story. I must consider myself lucky. The life of the mind is enriching, and it’s the road I have been traveling for a long time. It’s who I am.

But, the next and last worry for right now must be: Where do I go from here? For all out there reading, I ask you the same thing.

Is late never too late? My confession is that I refuse to choose between the home and the free. That is, I do not want to. Eventually, choices are made for us. Time is our master and sometimes a cruel one.

That kid in class did not realize how lonely the world can be. Now he knows.

At least, I think it is good that we demand to be who we are. Living authentically may be the only thing worth the cost of missing out on “barbecue and ballgames.”

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Do you think we have to make a choice between the home and the free life?

If not, how do we balance the two?

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