not fulfilling enough

December 2013. Sometime between Christmas and New Year's Eve. Brenda and I were sitting quietly, reflecting on the year gone by. We talked about ourselves. We talked about the kids. We went over Alex's baseball and orchestra. We discussed Anna's newfound love of gymnastics, her volleyball and her piano lessons. We talked about our house; how the maintenance was getting excessive and the roof was going to need replacing soon. The pool expenses probably outweighed the benefits of having it. The kids didn't seem to play in it much, etc. We talked about the fact that we would have to move whenever I retired, since the taxes and operating costs would be too high to afford on my reduced pay. We weren't planning on me retiring soon, just talking about what would happen 'someday'. We talked about saving more money and working to get ready to pay for college, since it was only five years away. We had some money saved up, but probably not enough. We discussed the schools that Alex and Anna were in. How they met our expectations, or didn't, with regards to our children's education. We thought that the schools were probably going to get the kids ready to go to college, but maybe weren't doing a good job teaching them how to succeed in life. We talked about anything and everything. Then we both sat quietly, just thinking about it all.

We were discussing the strain of trying to give two kids everything and the best start possible. Talking about wanting to keep enough time and/or money for ourselves that we could enjoy life, too. Looking at how we spent all our time running from one set piece activity to another, never really getting to spend time with each other or our children. It seemed we went places to watch our kids do things, but never got to be with them outside of the car. We complained that we were too busy going from one place to the next; we could never just be. We looked back on our own lives. Our parents had worked hard to give us a chance at the lives we were leading. They skrimped and saved so that we would grow up in good neighborhoods, go to good schools. Our parents helped us be involved in the things that we were interested in, whether it was music, sports or anything else. We always came first in their eyes. They made sure we got the best education possible, so that we would have the best start to our adult lives. We had both accepted this and done very well. We were both successful. We had great kids and a great life. While we recognized that we were repeating the cycle with our own children, we thought we were doing an even better job of it than our parents. We were set up to start our kids down the road of life with a better start than we had. The same road we were walking. The same road our parents walked with us. I don't remember if I said it first, or if Brenda did. We were sitting, thinking again. One of us said, 'This life is not fulfilling enough for me to want my children to live it again.'