my life as a sim

i used to sit up in my old bedroom as a teenager and play games on my desktop PC.  i was upstairs chatting on ICQ with a few of my friends when my mom dropped off my latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

A little known anticipated game called The Sims graced the cover.  and on the inside pages it touted a game about living through someone else.  a game where you chose their home, career and helped them have a better life.

as soon as the game came out i bought a copy, and many of days and nights did i sit up in my room planted firmly in front of my computer.  clicking away to make sure these little fictitious people had good lives.

and after some time i became bored with the idea of their boring little lives, i got sick of waiting for them to come home from work and only bring back a couple hundred dollars.  so, i decided to start using a cheat code.

and the game became more fun.  i was able to stock my sims' bank account with thousands of dollars and start building a dream home.  i could afford the more expensive furniture, which in turn made my sim happier.

i was able to entertain more people, and worry less about my sim being unhappy because they had so many things to keep them occupied.  my sims always wanted more stuff, they needed more space, and they needed it to be clean.

by the time i was done with the game, i had stopped playing with the sims themselves and was just building monster mansions with expansive kitchens and no less than 6 bedrooms.  and the sims lived their perfect little life, in a paused state when you entered create mode.  never fully enjoying their large bay windows looking out onto their perfectly landscaped lawns.

i didn't let them live their lives, determining it was too messy and too much of a burden to constantly worry about what my little person was doing.  so, i would just build. and build

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i now sit in front of my large iMac computer and type away at my blog and talk to my lovely internet friends.  i have recently redecorated my bedroom, and i have hung a large tapestry behind my bed frame.  i have a couple new posters ordered from amazon, and i have declared that my bedroom will now be my place of zen (even if i have to share it with the family). i'm going to Giant Eagle tomorrow to try and find succulents.  i am going to make this space mine if it is the last thing that i do..

trin brought rae up to the bedroom yesterday morning and she started to cough.  at that point i went into mommy-freak-out mode and had trin open her mouth.  a stream of coffee colored brown liquid started to pour out of her mouth and onto trin's pajama pants.

rae starts to move across the room, covered in her own vomit.  i yell for zane to quickly go downstairs and get some paper towels and rags.  and we start to clean her off and change her clothes. she's laughing as we meticulously go over her and make sure she is cleaned off,  she runs around as we fret over her spreading her coffee colored vomit all over our bedroom.

she rebounds quickly and trin and i start to dismiss this puking episode as a fluke.  we all get ready and make a trip to Anderson's General Store for some grocery shopping.  we make our usual rounds (starbucks and all) and i head home to let trin take a nap before dinner and to allow me some time to cook.

then trin get's sick and sadly he can't shake it off and laugh about it like Rae can.  and here is trin, puking his guts out in a trash can in front of my beautiful tapestry.  i see the idea of my beautiful bohemian bedroom becoming a catch-all room, again.

and that's because we can't live like the sims.  we vomit, we have leaky diapers, and we have grape juice spilled on the floor.  because i can't buy myself a tapestry and expect to have 3 more happiness points.  sadly, it doesn't work that way.   i can't graffiti all over my new computer desk and expect to somehow be magically liberated.


we don't have a baby in 3 days like you do in the sims, and copulating isn't just a blurry blob on the screen.  life is so much more than what those tiny little sims live.

because we can't always be happy (unfortunately).  it is not something that can be monitored on a little scale.  we have glimpses or flashes of happiness, followed by the mundane and sorrow.  we die, and we get old, we get fragile.


i've realized a lot of my days blur together, endlessly seeping from one day into the next.  becoming large segments of time that have no real beginning or end.  and i think that is normal at my age.  things stop being punctuated and ending, and start to become more fluid

and i think it takes a lot of soul searching.  it is really quite a feat to be bored yet content.  and i don't think it is something i have yet mastered, because i catch myself going through tons of what-if scenarios.

because honestly, being a mother is messy, and entertaining, and at times it can be very boring.

sometimes i think about hopping on a boat and just leaving.  i have this uncanny ability to romanticize ideas.  i imagine the sun in my hair, and a notebook weathered from saltwater, covered in little notes i have made throughout the day.  i think about eating canned peaches straight from the can and not having any more ties to this complicated life.  i wouldn't have to worry about dinner anymore, or clean bedroom sheets.  i think about viewing life as this all encompassing amazing journey like in The Life Aquatic. 

but i realize i'm a mother, and my children need me, just as i need them.  and there are moments of true bliss, but there are times that we are covered in puke.  i am tethered with them to create a strange and wondrous journey for them.  i can't do all the living for myself anymore.

and to not keep my life on pause and decorate the living room.  because there is too much to be done.

i have to keep living, even through the mundane and the puke.