Oh Philosophical One

Saturday 13th October 2007
at 03:59am

I often pinch myself, wondering if in fact we are really here. I’m driving a V8 Dodge Truck. We’re about to move into our own apartment. We are members of both the YMCA and the Brown County District Library. We have been here for almost 5 weeks.

After getting the truck yesterday we picked up our apartment keys today. How nice it’ll be to make a home for ourselves. To “live” in Green Bay. We thought we were happy here in the hotel and let me tell, we absolutely are but spreading our wings toward this new horizon is just so exciting.

I still look at signs that have the words “Green Bay” on them and shake my head. I know I’ll get there one day I say to myself forgetting for a moment that we are already here.

I know I’ve touched on this before but wanting to be here for so long it just doesn’t seem real.

Walking across the road this afternoon I had one of those moments again. The cars are on the other side of the road, it’s getting colder as every minute passes, every second person has some sort of Green “G” somewhere on their clothing.....

Ben and I were walking to library and a Green Bay Transit Bus drove by. I love this place. As we continued, the car park across from the library had cars filing out of it one after the other. It was after 430 so I assumed the working day had finished. Ben was sucking on his sugar-free lollipop as I thought about all of the time we, with Kelly and Luc, had spent together over the last few weeks. If not for this trip I’d have been just like everybody else I was watching. Filing out the car park, loosening my tie getting ready for 2 days off before it all started again.

One girl in particular made me think about our position more than the others. She was talking on her phone whilst she waited for the lights to change. I have no idea as to whom or what she was talking about but she seemed excited. Why wouldn’t she be? It was Friday afternoon after all. I imagined to myself that she was talking to her friends about what they were going to do now that her time was her time.

As we crossed the road I smiled because I knew that my time hadn’t stopped for almost 6 weeks.

I feel free here. Sure we’re busy but we’re doing what we want to do and outside of watching the Packers, that’s exactly how I had planned it. Kelly and Luc were enjoying an afternoon nap. Ben was pressing the elevator button in the library continuously, I was returning DVD’s and looking to hire some more.

This may be costing us a small fortune. We may have given up the very things in life that are so difficult to get. It may be as difficult some days as it is easy on the others but I know as I look around, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Before this we were living our entire lives for somebody else. My employer cost me 50 hours a week, the roads cost me 10 and our bank was taking 60% of what i was paid to put a roof over our heads. That was after the tax man took his share despite not having lifted a finger to stop by and help me on my way. My boys saw me a little in the morning and a little in the night. My wife, the only girl in this world I wanted to know since I was a teenager saw me even less. Through time that was just the way it was. We shopped at the same shops, ate the same food and watched the same shows on television.

At what point do you start living the life you want, not the one you have fallen into? I used to ask myself that every single day.

Now? Now we spend every second of the day together. We enjoy each others company (for the most part). We’re seeing new things, eating new food, shopping at new malls and watching whatever we want to. Do you consider Shopko, Walgreens and Kohl’s exciting places? We sure as heck do. Every day there is something different.

All of those thoughts, as though in slow motion, came to me upon seeing that Green Bay Transit Bus drive by. I was and still very much am, so excited to be here.

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