I am really fucking miserable right now, and this is another post where I don’t really feel like I can unload my baggage onto anyone, so I just put it all into writing the best I can and throw it up on the internet onto a brog where I have zero readers and hope that my words are heard.
But as the subject of this post says, I would just love to have a single day in my life where I don’t feel like the weight of absolutely every responsibility was on my shoulders. I’m exhausted with life right now and I don’t particularly see anything getting better any time soon, and it’s becoming harder and harder to keep up the façade some days that I’m anything at all beyond an overworked dad and basically nothing else of any redeemable contributions.
I’m sure it’s of no surprise that a lot of this stemmed from the recent homeownership woes that my house has been going through. I say my house, but the reality is that it’s what I’m going through, because when it comes to any of the home maintenance stuff, that pretty much falls solely on me to do.
I’m grateful to my neighbors almost to the point of tears for their generosity in time and effort in helping me get the whole fallen tree thing resolved, but as expected, the bigger issue was the plumbing matter, where I had a leak infiltrating the lower level from the bathroom above. After all, moisture is the bane of homeownership, and I just knew that this was going to be a more aggravating matter than the fallen tree.
To summarize, plumbers came out to assess the situation, and I was fully bracing for a $1,000 expense, because nowadays, my old belief that most every small matter pertaining to cars, medical, home repairs, or any sort of labor, usually comes to $500, but due to inflation and just ‘Murica, I’ve upped it to $1,000. Anything under $1,000 would be decided to be a win.
The showerhead was spraying back, which was determined the culprit of the leak, and a new shower head was affixed. $467. I was pretty pleased to have made it under $1,000 and I had hoped that the matter was solved.
But this post wouldn’t be here if that were the case, and that evening sure as shit, the leaking was still present. I got in touch with the plumbers, whom were total pros, polite, and I genuinely like them, but seeing as how all this shit was happening behind walls, the next solution would be to convert my 30+ year old three-valve shower hardware to a single pipe system, because the dated hardware was probably what was leaking. Suddenly, I’m up to $1,700, and add in the showerhead and I’m looking at not just $1,000, but $2,000+ to solve this conundrum.
Whatever fine, I just need this shit fixed. But since I’m poor as fuck and mostly living paycheck to paycheck these days, I have no real idea on how I’m going to cover this, but I know I need to get this resolved sooner rather than later, because the last thing I want is my home to deteriorate from a leak, because I really do take serious that moisture is the antichrist when it comes to homeownership.
Plumbers come back, and they cut a hole in my daughter’s closet, in order to access the pipes. They fill the tub to try and replicate leak conditions, but nothing is happening. It isn’t until the one in the bathroom begins spraying water at the wall does the leak start, and it’s finally determined that the culprit of everything isn’t the pipes or the hardware at all, but it’s the fact that the grout/caulk has failed, and there’s a breach(es) in the wall which moisture is escaping and riding a pipe to start dripping below.
The reality is that this has probably been happening for a while, but just recently gotten to the point of where it has dripped enough to have begun dripping below, but the fact of the matter is that this was no longer a plumber’s task to resolve, and was now opening the can of worms that quickly escalates into the notion of needing to redo the entire bathtub.
Because my home is over 30 years old, there are lots of things that were standard then which aren’t now, like setting a shower and its tile directly against drywall, instead of a concrete board and/or lining. But because I’m mostly broke, there’s no way a bathroom remodel is going to happen. Frankly there’s no way getting a tile person to regrout out here is going to happen, so it really boils down to the fact that if I want to buy some time and do the temporary fix, it’s on me to take the dive into re-grouting the tile in the bathroom.
To cut to the chase, I did it, it sucked balls, and I fucking hated doing it. There are probably a hundred things that I would have rather done than grouting a bathroom wall, but because if I don’t do it, nobody will do it, and if nobody does it, I’ll forever have a leak in my house which will destroy my home, and then I’ll jump off a cliff.
I accomplished absolutely nothing this entire weekend, because my life is always on the cusp of chaos, and very little is required for it to go tits up at any given point, and in the case of this particular weekend, mythical wife was waylaid by a migraine, which meant hard carrying the need to taking care of the kids was on me, but honestly that’s not really anything out of the ordinary, seeing as how 97% of days of the year, I’m the one who wakes up and prepares breakfast for the kids and am the rising sun for my daughters. Father’s Day was the last time I slept in, but prior to that, I legitimately do not remember the last time I got to sleep past 7:01 am.
I just don’t have any help in my life, in pretty much every aspect. I feel like the primary parent for my kids, which isn’t a complaint, but I’m also the primary responsibility holder for everything related to my house, and then I add work responsibilities, and I’m just always in this state of drowning and being unable to get my head above water, which results in this husk of a corpse that’s me, walking around like a zombie with no personality but full of frustration and resentment.
I’m just so fucking tired. I feel like I’m living an unsustainable life right now, and I think it’s only a matter of time before I break down from being the guy that has to hard carry everything, seemingly all the god damn time. I don’t have enough help, and I feel shitty that pretty much everyone only sees me as this burnt out dad that can’t identify to anything else at all, full of piss and vinegar, and I feel like I’m becoming an island all the time.
Just once, I’d love for anyone at all, to take some of the endless tasks of responsibilities off my plate. I’d love to get back to a point where I’m no longer living paycheck to paycheck anymore, and actually be able to save some money again, but raising kids is expensive. I’d love to feel like every god damn responsibility were not on me, but like I stated earlier, if I don’t do it, nobody will.
#1 asked me if I was feeling okay this morning, and I was honest and I told her no, I wasn’t. Once again, she rushed to get her doctor’s kit because she wanted to give me a checkup to find out what was causing it. It made me teary so I guess I already have broken down a little bit, but no matter how downtrodden my own life can feel these days, I’m fortunate to have kids who care about their dad, no matter how much baggage he has.
