Life on the Circuit

What in the world is “life on the circuit?”  Well, I’m glad you asked, since I’m about to tell you.  I first noticed it around the time we were graduating college.  Somehow, all of our friends decided that they had reached that point in life where they needed to be hitched.  Wedding invitations began to flow in from diverse places across the country.  They weren’t the kind you could politely turn down and mail the happy couple a wedding gift.  No, they were the kind where you’re in the wedding party and expected to show up in a tux (or a dress in Tamara’s case).  It got to the point where you were going to a wedding on a monthly basis.

After a year or so of this, we’d had all of the wedding scene we could stomach.  We made an executive decision to no longer befriend single people. “That’s so harsh,” you might say.  But, we had good reason.  Single people were just too expensive to drag into the married stage of life.

All seemed to go well for a while, but little did we know we had only changed to a new level.  We had traded the Wedding Circuit for the Newborn Circuit.  There were pros and cons to this new stage of life.  In most cases, it was less expensive.  You were only on the hook for a baby gift, and maybe fixing dinner for the exhausted couple one night.  Babies are fun to hold and sleep a lot, so it’s still possible to visit your friends and get a card game or two in.  On the down side, it began to make some of us (Tamara) think more earnestly about starting a family of our own.  Also, instead of a period of a year or so, we’ve been in this newborn stage for the better part of a decade.

Within the last few months, it has suddenly become apparent to me that we no longer simply exist in a single circuit.  We are now running in two simultaneously.  Our kids have gotten old enough that we’re now on the Birthday Circuit, too.  Again, these are cheaper than weddings, in that you only have to go and bring a gift.  They can also be quite a bit of fun, depending on what activities are going on at the party.  The downside is that the more kids you have, the more parties you are obligated for.  Unless you have twins, each of your children has their own peer group, with each friend in that peer group having their own parties.  It grows exponentially, and that means more gifts on average than you’ve been buying in recent history.

I have a sneaking hunch that if you have a family as big as the Duggers, then you don’t even really need a home anymore.  You simply drift from one birthday party to the next, eating pizza, enjoying the entertainment, and doing it only for the price of a gift.

I’m well aware that this stage could potentially last for decades.  But I’m already thinking ahead.  I believe that there will be more to come.  Some stages that I see, but haven’t experienced are:  the Graduation Circuit, the Empty Nester Circuit, and the Funeral Circuit. 

I joke about the cost of these things, but in reality, if you are spending a lot of time going to weddings, baby showers, birthday parties, graduations, and funerals, then it means you and your family are blessed with a large group of friends.  And I have a feeling that a calendar full of celebrations is much more to be desired than a year full of loneliness and free weekends. 

So, there’s nothing to do but get out there and ride it for all it’s worth.  And should you find yourself coming to our house on the Birthday Circuit, remember that my boys have really been wanting a Garmin.