Life and its curve balls

So, here it is, April of 2011. Where are we now? When you look at all of the trappings of the "typical family", you wonder...what if this is as good as it gets?

We now possess four cars. Four. Why? Because we feel some incessant need to drive? No...because that's what we do. We buy stuff, whether we need it or not. We live in a house with a (low rate) huge mortgage, we work at least a half-dozen jobs each, and we still find that we're only a couple of paychecks away from being flat-ass broke. Is this the "American way" that everyone seems to proclaim? How? Since when is working every fucking day of the week, 12 months a year, considered the "American way"? When is it OUR time? But I digress...

You see, it's that credit monster. We like our credit, but we hate our credit cards. Does that make sense? That's like hating your drug dealer, but loving his drugs. Hypocritical, at best. But yet, we continue to worship the credit gods, sending them thousands and thousands of dollars a month, in hopes that the illusive 'payoff day' will soon come around. In some cases, it has. We're not nearly in the bind we were a couple of years ago, but we're still in pretty tight with those high-interest death cards.

So where does it end? Do we win the lottery and pay it all off? Or do we just continue to pay like lemmings until we either die or a rich uncle leaves us a huge inheritance? Meh...I guess time will tell.

I've found myself feeling rather melancholy this week after receiving a photo montage DVD from my sister. It was a photographic chronology of my other dad's life, set to some pretty sappy music. I find myself missing him every day, and the DVD simply brought it home. I called my mom and talked to her, only to hear that she has begun to shed some of the trappings that she and John had accumulated in their 35 short years together. Perhaps that is where my whole mood comes from. I am rapidly approaching that "middle age" mark, and the family that I so desperately want to spend time with, I find that I can't because of my financial obligations at home.

My memories of my childhood and seeing those pictures flash by...simply makes it all the more bigger. My kids are growing up and moving on, and I wonder if I have had as much quality time with them as John had with the five kids he raised. The worst part? I know the answer is "no"...

Alas, my lifestyle is calling. I guess the "Cat's in the Cradle" now, and it's time for me to go to work. Until next time...