Domestic life

I went for a walk after dinner today on the walking trail that runs behind my apartment complex. I enjoy the trail as it quickly leaves the more industrial area of being sandwiched between a large apartment complex and the highway and progresses to a tidy suburban area, houses and yards backing up to the path. The neighborhood is all new, expensive houses with large single pane windows and perfectly coiffed lawns. The few trees left from the construction cover the path, but don't block out the details of people's personal lives. Wandering by you can look into the windows of these houses and see people eating dinner, ignoring life through television, or washing dishes. A few weekend warrior or retiree types are in their yards, tending the garden or edging the lawn, but the vast majority probably hire someone else to do it. It is the picture of suburban perfection.

I've always been subconsciously attracted to this kind of lifestyle. I used to go for long drives through Dover and Westwood at night, making up family stories to go with the various farm houses. I would stare out the window of the T into people's living rooms and kitchens, placing myself in their place, 10 years down the road. It's the lifestyle I was raised in, the lifestyle society seems to deem acceptable. You're supposed to want the American dream of the perfect husband, 2.5 kids, and large house in the suburbs with the white picket fence. When I tell my parents that I don't want to ever own a house or have kids, they look confused by my decision to opt out of the American dream, but really, sometimes I do want the American dream. I know it's inefficient and unrealistic given the modern rate of divorce, consumer consumption, over population and my education, but my subconscious can't help but fantasize about being a stay-at-home mother some days.

This admission scares me. You can only fail if you actually try for something. It's much easier to claim to want to remain a spinster in a small apartment. I have already attained that. And really, I don't always want the domestic life. I know I would grow restless without my own pursuits. I know I would feel guilty having children in a world already strapped for resources. I know that I only want to be domestic because I have idealized little slices in my mind - the farm with the single light on in the bedroom conjuring mental images of marital bliss, the child being tucked into bed bringing to mind cherubic children that never cry - but my imagination is very convincing sometimes. Logic will prevail eventually.

Really, I just need to get out of the suburbs.