Warning: If suffering from unemployment, consult physician before mixing excess time with video games.

    Much to the consternation of my wife, I have yet to reach an age when I don’t enjoy video games as one of my primary hobbies.  In addition to always working hard in school, I took on a teaching career, mortgage, two dogs, and a few acres of lawn.  Throughout all the standard American Dream activities, video games have been a fascination. 

    My wife and I have a great relationship and similar moral values, but seeing eye to eye on whether or not video games are still age appropriate is never going to happen.   Ever.  I’ve stopped trying.  She loathes them.  It is impossible for us to share the living room if I’m trying to play video games.  She huffs, puffs, and generally looks pissed off.  She’s not an unreasonable person; she still respects my right to spend money on them.  And like Henry Clay, I’m a man of compromise and will respect her right to hate them.  Therefore, I just play them while she’s at work or after she’s gone to bed.  Welcome to marriage.

    Last spring my teaching position was cut, and I was unable to find a new one during the summer.  During the stress-filled summer full of applications and interviews, gaming was still important.  However, now that the school year has started and I’m officially without income, games have lost their luster.  The wife’s salary is excellent and will cover us just fine; we’re in no danger of losing our possessions.  So, I should just wait it out, enjoy the time off, and play some games, right?  Well, that’s what I thought.  However, I find myself just not playing much anymore.  Despite staunchly keeping video games in my life, It’s never occurred to me to clearly define the true value they have. 

    All my life I’ve been busy, and games were the perfect way to escape.  In college, no matter what long work shift or exam was coming the next day, I made damn sure to set aside sixty minutes to just play.  When I started my teaching career, I refused to grade papers or plan lessons on Saturday.  That was the day to mow, spend time with my wife, and play video games.  I kept the ritual going, and I never could explain to myself or my significant why I did so.

    My life is now free of pressure, and the games are stale and almost seem silly.  I can almost identify with my wife.  Having all the time in the world to play my favorite video games has helped me realize why they’ve always been an important part of my life.  They have been the perfect way to decompress.  Obviously, just like literature or music, games will mean different thing to different people.  For me, video games take you out of your life, be it a good day or bad, and promote more interaction, thought, and emotion than any shoddily written sitcom or piece of Hollywood trash available.  Unfortunately, now that the knowledge is so poignant, it’s pretty hard to sit down and enjoy them.  There’s nothing from which to escape. 

    Yesterday, before my wife went to work, she left a Gamestop gift card for $60.00 on the countertop.  I couldn’t decide what to buy.  I cashed out the card, filled up the gas tank, and bought some groceries.

    Ironically, having too much time on my hands hasn’t mixed well with video games.  Therefore, I’ve resorted to other hobbies that better fit my new lifestyle.  The heat of summer was the perfect time to start an Earth healing compost pile.  It’s the perfect way to let the hours drip by.  Bits of paper and leftover food scraps make up only a portion of the perfect pile of refuse.  Organic plant material helps the decomposing process immensely.  So, I wait for my scrubs and grass to grow.  Then, I cut them, throw them in the mix, and wait for it all to decompose.