Leading a Double Life

Most of my blog followers know that I spend most of the work week in Kentucky and the weekends at home in Tennessee.  Obviously, at times it has been a struggle.  It is hard to be away from my family.  I have missed my youngest son's entire high school career and have missed most of my oldest son's award banquets and college concerts.  I often wonder if the price paid has been too high.

But there are good things about being in Kentucky.  I have learned to really enjoy living in my camper.  It is small and compact, but offers all of the necessary things I need and want.  I have a radio, a refrigerator, an oven and a stove, a bed, and a table.  I have found that TVs are not necessary and big beautiful homes don't make the man.  I have learned to love the simplistic life and want to take these lessons with me the rest of my life.

The strange thing about my two separate lives is that I am finding more and more that I have two separate identities.  I act differently in Kentucky than I do in Tennessee.  I oftentimes am a different person.  And strangely enough, the person that I am in Kentucky is more at peace than the person that I am in Tennessee.  I don't act this way on purpose, but I often react to my surroundings and circumstances.  I tend to be a chameleon.  And I need to change.

When I am in Kentucky I stop and take time to reflect.  I wake up in the morning and enjoy the sunshine and the gentle breeze as it blows through the camper. I build fires and read a book next to it.  I eat simple, clean, healthy meals that take little time to prepare but are delicious.  I volunteer.  I enjoy the quietness of being alone in the campground.  I look at the stars and enjoy listening to the birds. I focus and am prepared to face the next day.

Then I go to Tennessee at the end of the week and it seems like life speeds up and there are so many distractions around me that I start to react.  I become more tense.  I am shorter with my loved ones.  There is much to do and Sunday night or Monday morning departure always seem like just hours away.  I watch a few  recorded shows on TV.  I don't take time to look at the stars.  I don't just relax with my family.  Sure, we go out to eat and enjoy meals together but that tends to be my "downtime".  I don't read as much in Tennessee.  I try to write my blogs ahead of time.  I try to make sure my boys have some direction.  I lecture them on helping around the house while I am gone.  I deal with all of the "ugly" stuff.....and then I leave and go back to Kentucky. 

I know some of what I am conveying is just normal.  I am trying to fit being a husband and father into two days and it creates some chaos.  But I do feel like a chameleon.  I do feel like a hypocrite.  And I think that oftentimes I am cheating my family out of the real me, the best part of me. 

Next August I will be an official "empty-nester". 

I just hope and pray that I didn't sacrifice being the type of father and husband that I should be due to some of my business and personal decisions, both past and present.