I had just gotten home. I was exhausted, in a lot of pain, and completely drained of just about everything needed in order to be a functional adult. However, I decided to go get the mail before I went inside because I’m the only one in my house who ever gets the mail unless someone is expecting something, otherwise it will pile up and look like nobody lives in the property which I’m always paranoid of because I used to live in the hood and I know of all the little things to do to help reduce your property from becoming a target.
It was while I was trudging down my driveway did I see my shadow stretched out to look like a 17-foot slenderman, that I had the thought of how appropriate that visual is, because that’s probably what I should look like based on how much people in the world pull and tug and rely and lean so much on me, despite the fact that I really wish that such wasn’t the case and that everyone around me would just step up and make some fucking decisions on their own without needing me at all sometimes.
I came into my home, and was pretty quickly greeted by my eldest. She welcomed me home, and I could already feel the tears welling up in my eyes. #2 came shortly and by then I was already struggling to hide the fact that I was already crying. My perfect little daughters, sometimes my sole reason for existing, wanting to show me things they drew, crafts they made at school. #1 said to me before I got on the stairs, you should go rest now.
Great idea, I said to her. I went into the bedroom, changed into sleep clothes, and plopped down in bed. I couldn’t really stop crying and I have no idea when I actually fell asleep, but it was a miserable night’s sleep, waking up numerous times due to the pain from what I would eventually discover was a bad ear infection which wasn’t a surprise considering both my kids had it the week prior, in spite of urgent care brushing it off like it was nothing when I went to go see someone about it on my fucking ruined birthday.
Either way, it was about 10 hours in which I was in bed, sleep or not asleep, or whatever I’d call the fugue-like state of bizarre dreams, pain and tossing and turning because of the pain, and it was at around 5 am in which I decided to punt on trying to get any more sleep, and to get up and prepare for the day that I didn’t want to deal with after the one I had just gone through, but life and the passage through time stops for nobody, and I still had my kids to take care of and if I don’t do it pretty much nobody else will, so on with the show all the same.
As is the popular saying these days, I had really crashed out. Ironic a little bit, because I had taken all of Wednesday off of work to spend the day with my dad to deal with a lot of dad stuff in order to not crash out when stacking it on with working remotely, but a crash out still occurred regardless, but not necessarily due to just my dad per say, as much as it was a moment in the day in which I had a number of duties and obligations concurrently swirling over my head, and I succumbed to the feeling of how much pressure there was on me.
I like to think that things probably wouldn’t have been as dire and crash out-worthy had I not been sick myself to begin with, and that a usually healthy me would’ve been able to deal with all the bullshit of the day had I not been at 70% at best throughout the day, and down to like 30% when the acetaminophen wore off in the middle of my dad’s doctor’s appointment that went on for like three hours, naturally ending just in time for me to be in the fucking teeth of rush hour traffic.
But missing this day’s appointment was out of the question, because in American medical, if you reschedule an appointment, that usually means like, six weeks, and it had already been six weeks since I had made this one, and my dad was really wanting to see this doc on account of the fact that they possibly could prescribe something that would help his deteriorating mobility.
Believe me, if medical weren’t so American, and I could reschedule for a week later, that’s precisely what I would have done, because I was already sick, #2 wasn’t 100%, my workload was already starting to mount from my two prior days of remote work-related backup of colleagues who can’t function without me in the office.
And in hindsight it’s unfortunate that such tenacity is what led to such a trying day that led me to basically crash out, conclude that the 40s have been the most difficult decade of my life despite being just four years into them, and going to bed in tears, physically and emotionally depleted.
I was just so done, with everything. Done with being sick; done with the urgent care personnel that I saw on my birthday that basically did nothing except charge me the copay, when my second opinion at another office, it took two seconds of a check of my ear for the doc to confirm an ear infection. Done with dealing with the endless challenges of babysitting a third child in my elderly father, who is incapable of doing pretty much anything at all these days, and despite the fact that I set him up at a facility where there is no language barrier and he is capable of communicating with everyone there, he still doesn’t utilize it and waits for me to do fucking everything.
One of the priority tasks we were going to tackle was to finally get his Georgia identification; I figured his existing license and a piece of mail from his new joint would be sufficient to make the switch, seeing as how it was really that easy for me when I had moved to Georgia, 20 years ago, but a lot has changed in the orange-ing of ‘Murica, mostly to flesh out immigrants and make it as difficult as possible for those not born in these facetiously hallowed borders. My dad needed either a passport or naturalization certificate, to which he seems to have neither, and I was unable to locate them in his old home, his Social Security card, which of course he has no idea what they even look like, and two pieces of mail showing his new address, whereas I only had brought one.
The only saving grace is that I realized our deficiencies while I was still in the stereotypically long DMV line, and upon realizing the shortage, left instead of waiting out the line and ultimately arguing fruitlessly with a militant DMV worker, but it was still time wasted, and I think I’ve made my stance clear on how I feel about any of that.
Despite the fact that he traveled to Korea in 2022 and missed out on my second daughter’s first birthday, he has no clue to where his passport is. I found three expired passports as well as his retired Republic of Korea passport, but nada in regards to his current. I found at least six different copies of his naturalization certificate, but no original, and I’m not even going to try to bring a copy to the DMV, so it seems like the easiest thing to do is declare his passport lost, and get a new one issued, even though the likelihood of him making any international travel in his life is very minimal.
Either way, the DMV might have been a bust, but it was still essential for me to be up there so I could take him to a doctor that he’s been needing to see, and it was good to have the one we found, because they had Korean-speaking personnel, and the language barrier he was dealing with back home wasn’t going to be in play at this point.
Unfortunately, the acetaminophen that had been keeping the ear infection pain at bay for me through the first half of our day together had worn the fuck out while we on the way to the doctor’s office, so the remainder of the afternoon was an agonizing ordeal for me, with a dull ache boring to my ear preventing me from really fully focusing or being able to concentrate on the presence, when my dad needed me present.
Meanwhile, the adults in my house are texting me about #2, and her mysterious leg ailment, that she won’t or can’t seem to accurately communicate what the fuck the problem is, whether its insect bites, a bad knee or a bad ankle or toenails chewed too short. All I know is that there appeared to be some sort of physical problem due to the fact that her foot was noticeably swollen, but she’s claiming allergic reaction, and nobody seems to be really listening to my suggestion of children’s ibuprofen, ice pack 20 on and 20 off, and elevation, but still blowing me up all the same while I’m already busy with my third kid.
Long story short, the appointment dragged on forever, which if not for the fact that I was in a lot of pain, I wouldn’t have minded and rather appreciated the thoroughness of this clinic dealing with a new patient, but it was at the end in which they wanted to run up to 5-6 additional future tests did my blood run cold, and I really begin to feel the boiling point of circumstances, at the thought that I’d have to make 5-6 additional trips up to where my dad is, which don’t get me wrong, I love my dad and I’m doing everything I can to ensure his well-being, but the reality is that his facility and my house is over an hour away, and always, always marred with the worst of Metro Atlanta traffic, and the thought of having to make 5-6 additional trips for these medical tests, and the strain on my physical and mental wellbeing, my job, for having to remote so frequently, and my own personal family, for them having to pick up the slack in my repeated absences, and the fact that it’s taking time away from my kids, I was just ready to go nuclear, mentally.
So, I crashed out. I called my wife, my sister, vented out in my group chat with some friends, just had to vomit out just how over I was feeling at how hard everything in life was feeling, and that I was really, really struggling to maintain my composure through it all. Without question, the 40s have been the most difficult decade of my life, and I know I just turned 44, but holy fuck has it been a slog, and I don’t think anything short of a 2004 Boston Red Sox like comeback in the next six years is truly going to help change my mind that things aren’t going to be getting that much better.
I’m just so sick of having to be the guy that has to make all of the decisions, especially when such is the expectation, but everyone involved in these decisions is always so ready to question, second guess and just straight up not adhere to the decisions that they’re entrusting and depending on me to make on their behalf. It’s like everyone is so afraid of accountability and the risk of making a bad one that they just don’t do it at all, but they’re always ready to question and debate those who are trigger pullers, whether they want to be or not.
The drive home wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be; yes, the traffic of it absolutely blew, but it was time in which I could be alone, as sedentary as slogging through stop-and-go-traffic can be, and the painkillers I took from my dad’s place before I left were finally kicking in, and the only pain that I felt was in my head and in my heart from just how overwhelmed I was feeling.
But, by the time I got home, I was well beyond defeated, and wanted nothing more than a nice warm shower, a nice cry, and to lie down. And because it’s nigh impossible for me to ever get everything that I want, I forewent the shower and just plopped into bed and cried myself to a long and unrestful and uncomfortable sleep instead.
