Chekhov

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
– Anton Chekhov

Today is (well… was) Chekhov’s birthday, and so this quote has showed up a few times in the newsy retrospectives I pay attention to. And I really like that quote. Mostly because I think it’s true.

When the adrenaline is flowing (for good or ill), you feel more alive. You don’t fall asleep, no matter how long the day has been, or how much you’ve had to drink. You’re never too tired to get it on. You don’t zone out in front of the TV after dinner.

Routine, no matter how pleasant, has far fewer invigorating properties.

It’s easy to feel alive when you’re enjoying Vegas as a couple, going to strip clubs, taking in sexy, stimulating shows, and fucking each other wildly about the suite until the air conditioning no longer keeps up with the rising temperature in the room...

...but we can’t run off for four day weekends twice each month – nor would we want to. First, we do have a kid to think about! Plus, it isn’t financially feasible, and even if it were, making these things an everyday event would probably just change the nature of what a “normal” day is. I can’t imagine getting to the point where I thought “oh, dammit, do we really have to go again?” – but I know that could happen. There really is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

This isn’t to say I’m in any way unhappy. I watch the news in the evening (and even keep an eye on it during the day), and I’m constantly reminded how lucky I am – in terms of wife, and family, and life in general.

The past few posts have been the beginnings of a thought process, really... a pondering of how to strike a different balance between the good life we have, and that energized-enhanced vacation mindset. How can we make each day a little less like the former, and little more like the latter? How can we be a little more like our vacation-selves and a little less like our normal-workday-selves on a daily basis?

We had that initial onslaught of email exchanges, and that revved things up for a while, but that seems to have run its course. The dare game spiced things up for a time, but I could sense Dee’s interest waning, and I was running out of realistic-yet-interesting ideas (I have a lot of dares remaining, but they’re mostly either kind of “out there” as far as realistic chances of performing them, or admittedly a little dull), and so that, too, faded away.

The question is, what’s next – for myself, and for us as a couple? It’s a question that I’m responsible for answering (the rules say I’m in charge of these game-type things!). I have a few ideas percolating in my head. In the meantime, as I alluded to in my last post, I’d like to get a little amplitude in my daily adrenaline/energy level.

So I’m thinking about that, as well.