Tag: mythical

How today should be versus how it is

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today is my last day with *Fortune 50 company redacted*.  I’ve been here for a hair under six years, and this is the longest job I’ve ever had.  As much of a stressor and source of frustration the job had turned into over the last two years, under normal circumstances today really should be a bittersweet one, because there are still a lot of good people there, I’ve made a lot of good relationships, as I close this chapter of my career.

Instead I’m just bitter, at all the life’s circumstances that are swirling around in play right now, and I’m having a very difficult time letting go of all this anger and frustration I’m feeling. It’s tarnishing absolutely everything around in my life right now, and I’m fully aware of it and how calm people always wax poetic about how it’s never good to hold onto anger, but I can’t help it because my entire household has been compromised by one fucking person who thinks vaccination means they can resume living life like it were 2018 again and going into crowds and picking up plagues to spread unto others.

I should be excited about my new job starting up soon, but I’m not.  I haven’t even worked a day, but I’m already dreading it, because my home is still fucked with COVID, and in spite of me originally thinking I may have been asymptomatic, I’m feeling shit in my throat that is saying otherwise and I’m 99% sure I too now have dropped off the list of the undefeated but I can’t know definitively because the America is too full of stupid fucks, the disease is everywhere and I can’t get tested because all sites are slammed to oblivion and and all home tests are sold out everywhere until like 2025.

Instead of embarking on my new career path full of optimism and hope eternal, it’ll more than likely be just like a day like today: me on double duty with my girls because we can’t bring in help because of COVID and mythical wife still having to go to work because the school system is more fucked up than Heaven’s Gate and they’re more than willing to turn a blind eye to someone with a very recent exposure as long as they don’t have to go get a substitute teacher.  So I’m quadruple stressed out because I probably have the ‘Rona, I’m still on the clock with my last day of work, I’m worried for my wife, and dealing with both kids.

All because one person brought the fucking plague into my home.

I should be coasting to the finish line and feeling melancholy as I bid adieu.  I should be excited about my new job coming up. 

I should be in good spirits.

But I’m not.  I’m angry, frustrated, disappointed and disgusted.  Brain full of bile, throat full of phlegm, feeling bitter and resentful and helpless because there’s absolutely jack shit that can really be done about any of this but wait it out.Have to power through orientation and day 1 of new job while putting up a facade that everything is fine.  Have to wait out 10-14 days to hope that this Omicron bullshit works its way through my house’s residents.  Have to eventually find somewhere to test or have to pay for fucking home tests if they can even be found.

Have to keep life in fucking hold stasis for even longer, because of the conduct of someone outside my home.

Today should be a good day.  But it’s fucking not.  I can get over me getting sick, but my wife and my innocent children getting sick, is inexcusable.  It’s not fucking fair, and this is anger that I will be incapable of letting go of, for a long time. 

A kick in the balls at the buzzer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve never seen one of these before, no this is not a pregnancy test.  God forbid, no.  Mythical wife and I used those fancy tests that could actually run Doom on them.  Two kids was the plan and mission accomplished.

No, this is a rapid COVID-19 test, and the two lines that are shown indicate a positive, yes you have coronavirus within your system.

For all the caution, masking, distancing, isolating  and other measures mythical wife and I have done over the last 22 months, it still made it into our home.

To clarify, this is not my test, although considering someone in my household is registering a positive, it’s safe to say that we’re all exposed.  I, or anyone else in my house can’t really go get confirmed, because everyone in my area has gone bonkers and any testing sites are all slam packed not to mention it’s New Years fucking Eve.

I’m quite upset over the likely circumstances that brought this unfortunate development to light, but what’s done is done and raging about it will accomplish nothing at all.  But the result is still the same, and for the next week, maybe two, my household is going to be wonky, my wife and kids and myself will have to play spatial chess as we try to minimize together time so that those with symptoms avoid those without.

It upsets me that the world went from intelligent avoidance to eventual acceptance that everyone was inevitably going to contract coronavirus at some point, and in the case my home, it wasn’t anyone here that went out of their way to get themselves exposed.  We’ve been doing our part to minimize exposure and stay safe, but unfortunately we can’t monitor the world outside our doors and the activities that the people outside our doors are doing.

I’m just upset on varying levels and degrees right now.  There’s never any good time for anyone to get sick, but happening right on a holiday makes things a little bit harder and more inconvenient.  There is no consolation in me being negative or asymptomatic, when my wife and one of my kids are ill and addled.

My daughter registered a fever of 103F. Ordinarily, that’s a need to go to urgent care, but clinics and facilities all over are so overrun, that they do an assessment to see who’s at the greatest risk of death to determine on whether or not they should go or.  Seeing as how my daughter is acting fairly normal in spite of the temperatures, we’ve been recommended to “stick with what you’re doing – at home” instead of going to urgent care—that’s where the fuck we’re at in this state of the world right now.

Life is already fucking difficult enough as it is, but to throw coronavirus on top of it, and I’m just feeling defeated and owned and all sorts of dejected.  Things will seemingly never get easier, and all I can really feel like is the endless need to endure and be patient, instead of thrive and enjoying life more than I am.

It’s funny, because as I was finishing out my last post and ending it with how the book on 2021 was closing with that post, it was almost like tempting fate that something should occur with the one day we had left.  And much like the title of this post is called, it really does feel like a kick in the balls, right at the buzzer.

Happy fucking new year, everyone.

2 Under 2: the endgame for the girls’ blets (#069)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not that I would’ve had any objection to have had a son, I low-key was hoping for a second daughter, for the explicit purpose that I could purchase a set of women’s tag team championship blets for my two daughters to become the lifelong tag team partners they were meant to be.

Anyone who’s seen the modest gender reveal video my wife and I did with a balloon filled with blue or pink confetti, when we popped the balloon and pink confetti rained over my kitchen, you better believe that within at least 3-4 minutes, my mind was already thinking about the tag team blets that I would have to inevitably get for my girls.

It took a few months, but I just so happened to be vigilantly on watch when the day came where the WWEshop dropped these specific blets to the price threshold I was awaiting them to hit before pulling the trigger.  I couldn’t have been more excited when they arrived, and not just because they made mythical wife’s eyes roll like Marble Madness.

Y’see, there actually was an endgame in mind for these blets, and I’m going to share it here, because it’s really going to be a toss-up if my brog lasts long enough for my kids to eventually read this, and that’s even if they’re even remotely curious to want read about dad’s online dear diary for the better part of what will probably be like 35-40 years old by the time they might be curious.

Continue reading “2 Under 2: the endgame for the girls’ blets (#069)” →

100 Days, the sequel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today is a special day in the life of my family.  #2 has made it to day 100 of her existence, and this is an actual occasion in Korean culture, known as baek-il (백일).

Historically, this became a thing back in the olden days when Korea was so ravaged by poverty, famine, disease and Japanese people, the life expectancy of children was so low, that even making it to 100 days was considered monumental.  Sure, the passage of time has changed some things quite drastically, but the occasion has stuck, and baek-ils are acknowledged by Koreans all over to this very day.

Ironically, not much has changed since #1’s own baek-il from last year.  Considering the fact that coronavirus is still very much around and killing people on a daily basis, and that America has basically become a third-world country with an economy that’s surpassed by at this point, multiple countries, there’s a loose comparison to be made about disease and poverty.

That being said, it is, more noteworthy that #2 has survived the first 100 days of her life, than it really should be, but that’s the state of the world we live in.

I know I’ve been using my brog over the last few months at something of a sounding board of how much I’m struggling with two kids, but what I really hope is that in future years whenever I look back through the On This Day plug-in, I’ll re-read a lot of the things I’ve written under fatigue and exasperation, and either shake my head, laugh, or just cringe at the mental frying I went through raising two under two. 

No matter what I say, how frustrated I come off as, and things that I may insinuate under duress, I love my kids and I love my wife, and I will continue to do so no matter what.  Collectively and individually, they are the best things to happen to my life, and even if I lose my shit from time to time, I always come back and always remember that they are my everything.

100 days down, onto the rest of our lives, with only the best things being wished for.

2 Under 2: The First Disney Trip (#066)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Going to Disney World with the kids was definitely something that was going to be inevitable, given its place as far as mythical wife and I are concerned.  A wedding in central Florida where the wife was to be one of the bridesmaids accelerated the trip, and no matter how ready or not we were, the time had arrived to take the girls down to Orlando for a lengthy trip that was chock full of memories, lessons, trials and tribulations, as far as I was concerned.

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2 Under 2: My wife left me (#062)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Oof.  Even out of context, writing those words stings, and I hope that I’ll never have to write those specific words again.

But yes, mythical wife took #2 and went to go spend a few days with her parents, and I am at home with #1.  No, this did not stem from a fight and we’re already on the rocks after two years of marriage.  It was a call that she made on account of observing the fact that I’ve been operating at a stress level of 170 out of 100 and it’s only been getting worse over the last few weeks as the job that I’ve already lost my favor for tends to get seasonal this time of year, adding to the fuel of anxiety, frustration and negative short fuse, and that I could use a little bit of a break in from the constant screaming and very hands-on requirement of #2.

She’s not wrong at all, but the days leading up to this, I had a hard time digesting the whole plan, no matter how much I actually did need some quiet time.  No matter what anyone tells me, I can’t help feel a sense of failure or shortcoming at being a partner and father to my children, because I have been becoming increasingly short and miserable dealing with two under two, and the sheer lack of time I’ve had since the arrival of #2 to occasionally catch my breath, decompress and feel like a normal human being again.

But I really did need a break.  Pretty much since #2’s arrival, I haven’t had 30 minutes to myself where I haven’t been working, sleeping or being actively hands on as a dad, and the sheer lack of time to come back to earth has been grating at me and grating at me, every single night where I go to bed thinking about all the things I wanted to do but couldn’t do, and then it compounds each and every night.

As gross as it sounds, I’ve basically been showering once a week because I just frankly can’t find the time to do it more regularly.  Even though I know I’m getting grosser and grosser in between them, the time it takes to clean myself up seems more like a chore and a nuisance, and that I’d rather spend that 20 minutes doing absolutely anything else more self-serving than personal hygiene.

A similar sentiment exists for sleep itself, where in the past, I’d probably embark on the whole notion of revenge staying up late, where I’d sacrifice sleep for personal time because I’m so resentful that I didn’t have any time to myself that I’m going to take some in spite of the need for sleep.  Fortunately, cooler heads prevail most of the time, and I remind myself that the only ones getting hurt by me being gassed from not getting enough sleep are my wife and kids, and I opt to get sleep more often than making poor choices.

And as the days turned into weeks, my general state of being was not in a good place.  My patience deteriorated into nothingness, and just about every little thing would set me off.  #2’s frequent crying would grate at me, and I’d begun making more tasteless jokes about killing myself as a result.  All I was feeling was that every single day was wake up, work, and then clean, clean, clean baby stuff until it was time to go to sleep again, with nothing but feeding, diapers and thanklessly trying to calm a screaming baby in between everything.   And it basically began breaking me.

However, the notion that my wife has to take my fussy child away from me in order for me to not feel the like I’m burdened by responsibilities makes me feel sad, makes me feel defeated, and makes me feel overall lousy, even if it I am getting the opportunity to write in silence and stare at the wall in between the typing.  This is one of those instances where I do not feel like I have done well as a father, and it’ll probably stay with me for a while, but hopefully it will change my perspective a little bit, teach me a little more patience, and help me grow as a dad.

The day(s) that everything changed forever, part 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Started on July 14, 2021

I figured I should start this post on the day before, because mythical wife’s hospital check-in time is at like 7:15 am, and even if we have to wait three hours again like we did last time, it stands to believe that the day that everything changed forever, part 2, will have culminated before lunchtime, and I won’t really have that much to have glossed over for an emotional post.

So unlike the first time, we are not going to be taken by surprise by a premature birth, quite the opposite, we’ve been ticking down the days with bated breath to a predetermined birthday that we’ve been watching coming for several weeks now.  Despite all the preparation and bracing, it’s still mind-blowing to wrap my brain around the thought that in less than twelve hours, mythical wife and I will be welcoming a new human being into the world.

I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re given a few hours to prepare for it, or 38 entire weeks, after experiencing both ends of the spectrum, I’m led to believe that it doesn’t matter at all, the feeling of overwhelming there is at the thought of bringing a new person into existence.

As detailed in my prior post, most of the day was spent mentally waxing poetic about how every single thing I did with my first daughter throughout the day was the last time I’d be doing it as a father of one, and the varying feelings of guilt at the thought that my attention will have to be divided between two instead of just her.  The other part of the day was spent preparing myself to be taking two weeks off of work, so that I can transition my new child into the world, and for mythical wife and I to try and figure out how to adapt to a life of two children and probably go through a wide gamut of emotions in the process.

I’m quite paranoid that the send later function in Outlook is going to bone me, and I’m going to look like an asshole caught red-handed sending scheduled emails for my spontaneous trip to the hospital, so that I can chalk it up as personal/sick days instead of burning up days out of my more-finite vacation bucket.  But they’ve already been queued and I have to have faith that they’ll send on time and nobody will be the wiser.

As it is a Wednesday, it means that mythical wife and I pick up Chick Fil-A and watch Handmaid’s Tale, but since the season is over, we’ve been watching Loki, and we both feel very fortunate that tonight was the season finale, since the reality is that who knows when we’ll actually get to watch television on a schedule anymore in the future now that we’re soon to have two children.

Continue reading “The day(s) that everything changed forever, part 2” →