Link to Part 6

Last year, my wife and I took our daughter to San Francisco overnight. It was nearing the end of Spring Break, and she wanted to do something out of the ordinary. We got a hotel room, and spent a couple days doing touristy things that we generally take for granted. We went to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. We ate dinner at Ghirardelli Square. We played indoor mini-golf, and went to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in Chinatown.

Before heading home on the second day, my daughter wanted to take part in some sort of creative activity at the Japan Center Mall in Japantown. It was something she’d heard about on YouTube or wherever kids hear about things these days. The nature of the activity is unimportant; just know that it was a fairly extravagant indulgence, though not exactly break-the-bank expensive. Something frivolous but apparently fun. She enjoyed it.

While she did the activity and my wife waited nearby, I wandered around the mall. It occurred to me as I browsed the Kinokuniya Bookstore that I’d love to engage in some sort of frivolous activity that makes me happy without worrying about how much it might cost or feeling like I haven’t earned it. Is that an ability that died with my childhood? It had been so long since I considered doing such a thing that I had no idea whatsoever what sort of activity I might do, nor how I’d put myself in the proper frame of mind to believe I deserve it.

Every few years, we go to Disneyland. (Before we were parents, we’d go several times a year, but that’s beside the point.) Whenever we find ourselves at Galaxy’s Edge, the expansive Star Wars-themed area of the park where guests can hobnob with Star Wars characters, ride kickass Star Wars-themed rides, and drink mind-altering intoxicants in a genuine wretched hive of scum and villainy, I see people walking around in their Jedi robes carrying lightsabers and Astromech droids that they built themselves at shops dedicated to that purpose.

I’m not saying that building a lightsaber is necessarily the sort of indulgent activity I’d take part in – I was always more of a Han Solo fan than a Luke Skywalker fan, to be honest – but it always looks like fun. Everything in Galaxy’s Edge is basically what little Jack – and young adult Jack – daydreamed about. Even though I’m nowhere near as die-hard a Star Wars fan now as I was in my younger days, I suppose that if I could have gotten past the whole “I can’t do things I enjoy without feeling like I’ve earned them” mindset, I might have been so caught up in the Star Wars of it all that I would have built a lightsaber, bought a Rebel Flight Crew jacket, or gotten Darth Jar Jar tattooed on my bicep. That’s a thing you can do there, right?

I know that part of the reason I simply can’t indulge myself in such a fashion is that that it’s hard for me to spend money because I don’t make enough of it. Granted, I can’t say for sure that if I made three times as much as I currently do I’d allow myself the occasional pricey frivolity; it’s possible I still wouldn’t believe I’ve done enough to earn it. At any rate, I don’t want to be a burden to my family. I don’t want them to think that I spend money with reckless abandon on stuff that isn’t necessary for my continued survival. And I’m sure that for the last fifteen years I thought that showing that kind of restraint would save me from some sort of metaphoric guillotine – or Rancor pit, to stay on-theme – when my usefulness was depleted. It didn’t, but I’ll get to that later.

Sorry, as I write this I’m very much in Star Wars mode as I’m still reeling from last night’s three-hour Andor series finale (around three weeks ago by the time this post is published). Fucking amazing.

The thing is, I wasn’t like this before I became a parent. I had no problem indulging myself, whether in the form of a once-a-week trip to the local comic shop, the latest video game console, or some sort of expensive collectible. I didn’t feel like I had to justify doing so; I worked hard running a business, and I guess that was all the justification I needed. You may recall that I used to have a pool room; it might not come as a surprise to find out that one of the bedrooms in that house was used as a geeky sitting room where I could relax and read comics while surrounded by high-end statues and busts of my favorite characters.

After fifteen years spent storing much of this collection in my parents’ garage, I’m currently in the process of selling it off. Nothing lasts forever.

Up next: Life Ends at Parenthood, wherein I try to shake off yet another shitty life lesson.