8:05am. The irritating alarm I've had for ten years goes off again. I look over at my wife as she sleeps right through it. Nothing dissimilar to any other morning. I ruffle up the crisp white sheets a bit as I leave the bed and my wife responds with slightly heavier breathing. My toes retrace their daily pattern one after the other on the cold hardwood floor. Following the path my muscle memory has worked into them every day, my feet find themselves at the even colder tile bathroom floor. I look up into the pristine mirror and see my short hair and weary eyes looking the same as always.
I step into the shower, and step out again at 8:27am just like I do every morning. By 8:40am I have just finished the typical power bar and cup of coffee that wake me up every morning. My wife and kids are still asleep. I run up the stairs to press my lips against my wife’s cheek one more time. Her eyelids flutter for a moment in return. I check on the kids one last time and I’m out the door by 8:44am. My wife will take the girls to preschool around 10:00am. By then I’m under the same deluge of paperwork that continually flows into my cubicle.

I see a billboard urging me to visit Aruba during my commute. I used to travel. There was a time when lifee wasn’t the stagnant routine it is now. I studied abroad in Spain, my junior year of college. El viaje fue fantástico. I partied. A lot. I did crazy things. Well, at least I did different things each day. Back then, I didn’t have the outline of each day imprinted on the inside of my skull. I had a lot of fun. But I didn’t realize it. I never knew how much I would miss my youth. I kept looking forward to the future. I couldn’t wait to find my bride, and to be the perfect groom. I took each fresh unplanned day for granted by wanting something stable. Now, I recognize that stability is just a nicer word for monotony. Yet for over ten years I have been under the delusion that this is what I wanted.
All of my senseless college buddies and I have been poured into the suburban mold that is our future. And after time we start to harden. We start to think we want the nice car, with the nice house sitting in front of the nice backyard you can play Frisbee and crochet in with your nice two kids. We start to forget how dull our comfortable gray cubicles are. We start to forget about the lives we used to live. We start to forget how hollow this all is. I love lifee. I love my family. I force these thoughts into my brain each day. I do love my family. Everything I do is for the life I always wanted.
5:01pm. I walk out of the office right on time. 5:15pm and Daddy’s home just in time for dinner. 7:00pm we put the girls to bed. 9:08pm I tell my wife how unhappy I am.
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