Later on tonight I will be joining with ten other people to celebrate Thanksmas 2006. Thanksmas is our first-ever-annual-inbetween-Thanksgiving-and-Christmas holiday for our little group of friends that cannot spend the real aforementioned holidays together because they have family obligations.
Hopefully it will be the beginning of a great new tradition for us.
However, it does make me wonder: what can we do to balance the pressures of family with friends as a certified grown-up?
As a genuine contributing member of society, a grown up, a twentysomething with spouse, new demands are constantly being placed on our already precious time. The need exists for balancing our private time with family time and friend time, all separate from work time.
The past four months have brought changes to the dynamic of my daily life: Shana and I had been fairly sedentary with our after-work time. We saw friends anywhere between one and four times a month; now we barely spend two nights at home a night due to friends coming back into our routine.
I started employing one of Shana's friends, a bright girl named
Stephanie, and now I spend more than 60 hours a week with her. And because she is coming out of her shell after a failed relationship, we are spending more and more time at hot spots around town. My exercise regiment has since vanished (I got in my first 30 minutes in the last five weeks this afternoon); I've put on weight; constantly felt crammed for time; and the toll has been even harder on my wife.
But events like tonight should help alleviate some of our concerns. We're likely to have a better time tonight with a larger group, still feel relaxed in someone's home, and be able to get home at a reasonable hour.
One of my primary joys in life is social interaction: I discovered sometime in college that I enjoy it far more than I should. Being able to control, and enjoy, the time we spend together and with others is an important skill as we grow older together.
