Life Beyond the TV

....or better known as restless, all out, unceasing boredom. So, I will fess up. I was raised 100% Bill Gothard in every way....envision the Duggar's and that was our family...just on a scale of about 10 times smaller. Yep...the dresses and jumpers for girls, the khaki pants with knit collared shirts for boys, the no dancing, the no TV, only hymns for music family. We did have TV once at the very beginning of our days...before we realized the contagious conviction of others that suddenly came to visit our own dwelling. And in those days of limited TV we were allowed to watch 1 hr each day M-Sat. So, every Monday through Friday from 5-6 pm we gathered around our gigantic 500 lb ancient box and Little House on the Prairie entertained us. Saturday mornings we watched the old, truly good Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry....the original ones. That was the extent of my TV viewing from 5 yrs old until I left home at 20. I was deprived. Just as my own children have been all of these years by very stringent guidelines I have now come to appreciate.


So one can imagine my joy upon meeting my husband and discovering the world of cable that existed far beyond Mary, Laura and Carrie, Bugs, Daffy, Elmer and good ole Foghorn Leghorn....which is the very reason, by the way, we have a real live Fogorn Leghorn chicken running around in our pasture, much to humorous husband's delight. But I have been deeply in love every since....with cable, that is. And our foghorn leghorn chicken too, I suppose, but more importantly and not deviating from the topic.....cable TV. On the chicken note though.....somehow in some strange turn of events when naming him his name went from Foghorn Leghorn in which I stated obviously and quite ignorantly that we couldn't just call him by his breed name....never guessing in my ignorance that they are only Leghorns...not exactly FOGHORN Leghorns. Yep...I would later find that out when calling dear McMurray's Hatchery and having the dude go into fits of laughter as I asked a question concerning their Foghorn Leghorns. The answer with lots of refrained masculine chuckles...."Uhhh....ma'am? We don't have anything by that name. I'm assuming you're asking about our white Leghorns? They ARE the type Foghorn was...uhh, if you are speaking about the one in the cartoon, ma'am.....but they do not grow to anything even near his size." With even more rounds of chuckles before all out laughter. Well...thank you dear sir, now that I feel like a stupid idiot.

Anyway...so I much later came to learn that Foghorn is not exactly his breed name...but I didn't exactly know that at the time. So, as I stated earlier, we couldnt' exactly call him by his supposed breed name so chicken name loving husband asked...."What about Ricky for Ricky Leghorn?" I still to this day have no clue who Ricky Leghorn is or was but he assured me he was a real dude at one point and thought it was hysterically funny to have a rooster named Ricky. So, on the chicken note...actually more on the cartoon Foghorn Leghorn note....we somehow ended up with a real live chicken that eventually went from Foghorn to Ricky the rooster for Leghorn. Whatever. Makes me confused just thinking about it.


So, as it was, I came to love cable. And I'm not talking merely love it but I mean really love it. TV watching husband had never known what it was to live without cable so it was a necessity in his book. So, the 1st year of our marriage consisted of me being glued to the TV during non working hours as I caught up on a whole life's worth of deprivation. I could not believe the world beyond on the big bube tube. And on another quite ignorant note...I used to actually believe it was nicknamed the "boob tube" due to the graphic nature of what all I learned was revealed on even the most mundane of shows. Why it is actually called a bube tube...not a boob tube...., I still have no clue. I could go look it up but I don't even care why. I just know people called it that at one point. Public schooled, cable watching husband was quite amused during our 1st few years of marriage as he began to truly understand my ignorance concerning all of life.....despite the few wild years I had lived. Ironically, during the 2 yrs I spent being rowdy before we married I was actually so poor that I never had the money for cable. So, despite the little carnal knowledge I gained from those brief years it was not from any TV watching experiences...and I somehow managed to stay blissfully naive even when living among the wolves of the world. My naivety concerning some things in life still continues to confound my husband at times.


Back to cable. After I had successfully watched every show humanly possible and every rerun at least twice my TV watching days eventually settled into a mere few hours in the afternoon as 2 young children slept. As we added children TV took a backburner and became a luxury. By the time we had 5 I was either sleeping with them or cleaning house in the quiet hours. Somewhere around Garrett we turned cable off completely and had no TV reception at all and went without any viewing experiences for an entire year. Amazingly, it was fun for both of us. We eventually added it back due to beginning to miss it and settled into a routine of staying busy and active with children and outside activities and then comfortably bedding down at night to watch a couple of very anticipated hours of HGTV, the History channel, Discovery Health, National Geographic or other fun educational stuff together. The house was quiet and this became our time to wind down and just be with each other. For me it meant that I am still...for the first time that day..head lays quietly in husband's lap as he rubs my head and plays with long strands of dark hair. We just lay absorbed, sometimes quietly...alot of the time laughingly.....in the sweet presence of each other's companionship...watching the wonder and nature of the planet, the disgustingness of Dirty Jobs, or dream about far away places on the coast of where we someday will live. TV became our longed for downtime. Long gone were the days of depressing CSI and other nasty, dreary dramas. We'd gotten to a point of the children not even knowing what TV is, never having any desire to watch due to much more alluring outside activities, and our guarded alone time was an hour or 2 each night spent with each other just watching interesting educational fun stuff.

So, then came the recent events of pairing down on absolutely everything in life. Luxuries were tossed in an order to be more frugal and efficient with the money we are responsible for. Sooo...painfully....the cable went. Along with the house phone and several other things. I can live without the house phone...easily.


The cable, on the other hand...much to Bill Gothard's utter dismay....is sorely missed. And on these specific lonely nights when shift husband is off saving the day I am left to the quiet rhythmic breaths of a sleeping house. And then boredom sets in and then an overall restlessness with all of life. No book satisfies, no writing eases the restless soul, no magazine allures, and no house cleaning even begins to look appealing. So, I sit and the agitation grows. In an effort to give myself something to anticipate at the end of the day I spend the hours pumping up in my head the long hot shower that awaits.....enough glorious time to shave both above and below the knee, enough time to be considered sinful just washing hair, enough time to just stand there and let water fall over me like rain in the quiet. And so the dark quiet hours roll around and I do exactly that. And I fall, once more, in love with the smell of toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, body spray and shimmery lotion. And after the self indulgence has swiftly passed I am left still restless, still longing for his company, still wondering what could be on TV that I'll never know. Alot of time passed, time spent on bath and body but no closer to any contentment of mind, body and soul. Restlessness pervades and the clock seems to stand still for hours. Ramblings of restlessness...nothingness......fill page.

And I have decided that life beyond the TV does not exist....at least on shift nights. When he's home we now read quietly together...or I'll read to him. But even that kinda sucks since you can't very well read to somebody and have your head rubbed at the same time. I'd like to think that on shift nights I could quietly curl up under covers, propped on pillows and do something deeply meaningful and spiritual like reading endless hours of the Bible....but it's just not happening, at least not now. So, I sit and I try not to ponder too deeply or think too deeply and instead just write random words of nothingness for no one.

So, life beyond cable...it doesn't really seem to exist tonight. Boredom, restlessness, and a deep longing for salmon, a baked sweet potato and a massive Frappachino is what overtakes the soul on this unending night. How can one have lived through 11 years worth of 24 hour shifts....many of them 48 hour shifts and some even 72 and 96 hour shifts....and still be this lonely and this restless and this bored when away from him? One of these days I'll get used to it......someday. But until we get the history channel, and TLC and HGTV and National Geographic back I'm guessing they're just going to be alot longer than normal. We are one of those few large homeschooling families that really truly love cable. There's only about 5 channels we go between but I do love having it. The children do not even know what it is to watch TV. It's not really even a part of their life....not really intentionally but somewhat intentionally to some extent. We began with guidelines such as only "this" is acceptable. Somewhere we've transitioned into no longer even needing it since it was just eventually phased out and overtaken with other things to do. But, for me, I really do love it. And at the current moment I'm bored and restless and have nothing to do.....or nothing I want to do.