Ordinary Life
| Pay the bills, watch TV, day in, day out the same routine Mow the grass, fix the leak, just to fix it again We go to church, go to work, so picture perfect that it hurts I feel like I’m trapped inside this ordinary life |
I was just sitting here listening to Chad Brock’s “Ordinary Life.” For those of you who don’t know the song, it starts out with the husband leaving his family because he wanted more than the ordinary, everyday type of life. Later it has family carrying on with their ordinary life, and he calls back yet again missing his ordinary life.
You know what? I never wanted to do this. I simply wanted to do the whole American dream thing. I felt I was making decent progress, but it suddenly fell apart. All I ever wanted was to be some ordinary average person, just like everyone else. I wanted to be loved. Wife, family, a little house just big enough, grass I have to mow all too often. Let’s throw in a vehicle or two that isn’t fancy but generally works. Just another day in paradise. So close.
But instead here I am in Uzbekistan? How the fuck does that happen? Now I get to be world traveller, with more money than I thought I’d ever have. I can do whatever I want. I don’t have much in the way of freedom here in Karshi, but I’m looking for something to change that. I may have the opportunity to go to Kuwait for a spell before coming back here and wandering Afghanistan migrating some servers. Of course, Evil Dwarf may get in the way of that, that micromanaging shithead, but we’re trying to work around him. More places on the list to say “yeah, I been there” I guess.
It works out that I can’t have my dream while I am here. Maybe I can see other dreams but they all have attendant problems, more so than the old dream. I wonder after a few more years, what will I want then? I certainly don’t want to live this life forever, where I look back and find I have nothing to show for the unconventional choice. I think a lot of these guys go back to their families, try to remember who everyone is, and get frustrated and leave again. Of course, there’s a threshhold of years before that happens, but it’s easy to see what I don’t want to do, even if I don’t know what I do want.
Definitely I need to move out from the prison camp to have any idea of these things. I think you can put up with it for a year, but after that it just wears too much. I’m looking for something in Tashkent, maybe one of the other NIS republics, or even Mother Russia herself. Making the network of contacts is the difficult part.
It’s also like another song:
| …you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here. |
Speaking of Closing Time, I guess this here post is over.
January 21st, 2004 at 12:06 pm
Heh. I’m no longer looking to get back into the military, though I could afford the paycut now that I have no bills. I’m starting to think about thinking about a family though, so that’s not a good option. I’m building the bank for “starting over” though like I said I am not sure what form it will all take.
I don’t know where I want to go — USA is nice but I wonder if I still belong there. I don’t know that I belong anywhere else though, so I guess we’ll have to see. I’m sure to some extent I’ve seen some of the odd things about the states put in sharp relief, but haven’t fully had to deal with the problems of living in another country, either. That’s another good reason to escape the prison camp life. I don’t really worry so much about amenities, I think I really have few needs. As far as I am aware, no one is after me, so I don’t have to worry about that.
I don’t know, I think I was simply going for irony on the fact that most people leave places, people, or things because they want something better. I didn’t. My life sorta walked away from me, and when I had enough of standing there looking like an idiot…well, I left too. I just wandered farther off than most people would expect. 😀
January 19th, 2004 at 11:50 pm
From Eagl:
Saw an ad for the RAF and Royal Navy in a theater before watching the latest LoTR movie… I hear the navy still gets a daily rum ration but you’d want to confirm that with your local recruiter. It’s not exactly an ordinary life but you get to grow a nice moustache and march up and down the square.
:rolleyes_wp:
After being married for a year and a half now, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are probably lots of low-maintenance prospects out there, but you gotta look in the right places. The “social scene” is the place where you find people who care about spending lots of money on looking good, give a shit about who says what about who, etc etc., and to me that equates to “high maintenance”. I met a few nice girls in college who, on hindsight, might have been really fun to be with even if they didn’t look like a supermodel or whatever, but I wasn’t looking for that at the time and didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
I always figured that the “american dream” was that you didn’t have to conform to one path in life. A little hunting around for the right path is the natural consequence of not being programmed from birth into a particular life. Are you making enough money to be able to “start over” somewhere? More school? Pick a new trade?
Regarding settling down in another country, all I can say about that is I’ve been spoiled by the amenities in the US and even the UK strikes me as bring more like a 3rd world country than otherwise, mostly due to the fact that British people don’t seem to complain about anything so nothing has changed or improved in this country for the last couple hundred years. Lots of NATO pilots who were serving as UPT instructors in Texas are doing everything they can to remain as long as possible, so I guess they like the US too. Sense of adventure aside, is it going to depend on the salary/lifestyle ratio or other factors like (for example) avoiding the past or dodging tax/alimony collectors? :cry_wp:
Just some random thoughts… Don’t mind me, I’m still homeless in the UK and a tad bitter about it.