Monday Miasma

It hit like a dull headache, a black bomb, an overripe tomato to the skull. The radio alarm began its insistent bleating at 5:25 a.m. as this hot, bleary Monday morning made a rat-like appearance on the horizon. Rolling out of bed to get the shower going for my beautiful wife, thankful for Mr. Coffee burbling away around the corner in the kitchen, I stumbled around the house like a weary drunk, hoping that the calendar was wrong, that perhaps it was still Sunday. After staggering around with the iron, clothes for the day, and a sloshing cup of caffeine, I made the bed, balanced the budget and put something good on the iPod for my workout later in the day. This American Life with Ira Glass, Dave Ramsey's 39 minutes of financial wisdom, and maybe a few running tunes to keep me from an early death. Fortified with the first effects of pulse-quickening coffee, I shower, get dressed and then help my wife get squared away for her early commute. I wave as she drives off under crystalline blue skies, heat already rising off the blacktop. Brown, parched mountains in the distance.

Egg white omelet, bowl of oatmeal, vitamins, kids off to school. Driving in on the freeway I see cadavers hunched behind wheels, swerving and jockeying for lane position. Monday smearing itself on me, I signal to exit, park under the scalding sun and ensconce myself behind this screen, arteries constricting, blood pressure rising. I count the MINUTES down between arrival and next available departure. Finally to the gym for relief...escape. The workout hour flies, the afternoon drags like a hundred years in Kansas. 4:30 arrives five days later and I race out of here like a rocket-fueled demon. Racing home on the freeway, my gray Honda sedan screaming around less motivated motorists. Home, and all of its unique issues, comes into view and I am free for 12 hours.

This is no way to live. At all. Enduring stress, pounding boredom, zero motivation. Interest long-gone. $93536.04 every year gets me what? A house that I hate, white trash neighbors...where did I go wrong? It was the worst decision of my life to buy the KB house in February of 2007, it's price already fallen $100K with another $75K to go, unknown to me. I have no debt except this house...and the rental property. Certainly not an 'income' property. No other debt. Savings not insubstantial, though lagging for my age.

I am seeking the courage, the direction, the wisdom...to move away from this, to increase the angle of my trajectory. To enter the Narrow Gate, not just seek it.

Matthew 7:13-14 (New International Version)
The Narrow and Wide Gates
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.