Tag: angst

Dad Brog (#147): Parenting will never be easy, vol. 978

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As much as I don’t like to admit it, I’ve been struggling lately in my life as a dad.  I feel like my patience is at an all-time low and just about everything my kids are doing lately is just pissing me off, mostly on account of the colossal amounts of escalating defiance and just plain lack of listening that’s going on with my four and three year old daughters.

Everything from wake-up time, free play time, quiet time, and especially bedtime are these monumental conflicts where I feel my disposition dissolving all the time, and I just end up in a state of agitation, annoyance, anger or all the above.  I don’t like it one bit, but I can’t deny the fact that I’m losing my cool over things at a very frequent clip, and I’m hoping that this is just a stage of life given the ages of my kids, and this will eventually pass and eventually emerge in a state of being that’s not as chaotic, not as frustrating, and not as resulting me being pissed off all the time.

Then again, the whole notion that challenging times will just pass doesn’t change the fact that time is passing, and then I struggle about that notion that I’m letting formative kid years of my children’s lives pass, while mostly in dour moods, which then makes me feel bad about that instead.

There’s actually a part of me that dreads the weekends lately, because there’s usually a lot of time in which I’m on dad duty alone with the kids, and I don’t always know what to do with them.  And the difference is now from when they were 2 and 1 and 3 and 2, is a whole lot more mobility, a whole lot more freedom to roam in the house, and most prevalently, a whole lot more intelligent. 

My kids are pretty smart, and are seemingly endlessly testing boundaries and limits, and doing just about everything that I’m please asking them to not do, they hardly ever listen, and I’m just left exasperated, fried and burned out on trying to figure out how to keep them occupied without having to resort to television, going outside because it’s been cold as fuck lately or something that results in a colossal mess that will make me want to slit my wrists.

Mornings have been challenging lately, because #1 has been deciding to wake up earlier than our routine generally is, and lots of mornings, she just bangs on the door and walls and makes a lot of racket that runs the risk of waking up her sister or others in the house.  I’m usually not done with making breakfast, and I’m already aggravated at knowing there’s a clock over my head at needing to get shit done lest she tornadoes up her room, and that becomes one more task on my endless list of responsibilities.

There’s like a 75% chance that #2 will either: be pissed upon waking up and melt down.  Be pissed at the top of the stairs and refuse to come downstairs and refuse to be carried downstairs, and then melt down.  Be unhappy with what I’ve made for breakfast, refuse to eat and then melt down.  Or any combination, if not all of the above.  I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even bother to try and console beyond an initial attempt because she won’t communicate why she’s upset, and I just give up and start reading books to #1 who rarely has an issue with breakfast.

But bedtimes, they have become a vastly different type of hell for me on the daily, and frankly have become my least favorite part of every single day as of late.  You’d think that I’d be doing cartwheels at the idea of putting the kids down for the night, so I can enjoy my 1-2 hours of freedom.  But the defiance, having to wrangle and chase down the kids, get them bathed, teeth brushed, dressed and prepped, even before we get into their rooms for bedtime stories.  It’s like a last boss battle every single day, all for a payoff of the pithy 1-2 hours of freedom I get to have these days, and usually the first hour of my paltry me time is really spent decompressing as well as doing cleaning and prep-work for the next day, before I can really turn everything off and try and relax with what little time I’m afforded.

More than likely, I’m just at my burnout point again.  I haven’t really had a real break from being on dad duty in a while; I know I had a kid-free weekend a month ago, but that was away from home, mostly sequestered inside a cabin as a blizzard ravaged the North Carolina mountains, and everyone got sick.  We had to make several long drives before and after in short order, only to come home where everyone was sick, and frankly when a break is structured like that, it’s hardly a break at all.

But it just sucks.  I don’t like where I’m at right now, with how perpetually pissed off I am, with parenting.  My kids deserve better than angry dad all the time, and I wish parenting could just alleviate the pressure just a little bit off my throat to where it doesn’t feel like such an exasperating chore all the time, and more stuff I should be enjoying and relishing in spending time and watching my kids grow and develop.

The year-end post, circa 2025

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year in which I begin to look back on a year as a whole, and determine whether or not it was a “bad year” or just another year.  Not to sound too pessimistic and nihilistic than I already to and serve as just a reminder, but the idea and fantasy of “good years” seems a bit outlandish and not really within the realms of reality, at least when you look at the type of person I am and the state of the world currently.

So when I try and reflect on 2024 as a whole, I don’t have much good to say about it.  Frankly, with a few exceptions and caveats to coming unsurprisingly overarching blanket statement, 2024 was not a particularly great year.  Other than the obvious results of the presidential election and the inane bullshit that led up to it, there weren’t any epic catastrophes that I was really aware of, but the rest of the year just felt like a death by a thousand cuts kind of year, where there was just way more negative bullshit that nicked and jabbed all year long to lead to where I’m feeling beaten and exasperated with life and the state of existence now at the end of it, than had there been a lot less.

The thing is, above all else, I’ve been pondering on whether this was just a down year, or rather just symptoms of being in my 40s, where it seems like the difficulty of life jumped exponentially, from where it was in my 20s and 30s.  There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think to myself, when did life become so difficult to where it feels like every single task in every single day begins to feel like pulling teeth?

I have this conversation occasionally with my sister and some of my similar-aged friends, but I’m curious to whether or not this is just a rough patch in all our lives collectively, or if this is something of a rite of passage for all people who hit their 40s, and things just start taking a turn for the worst more often than not.

Being in your 40s means everyone’s parents are now well into their twilight years, and in the landscapes of our lives, death’s presence grows and occupies a larger space than in our younger years.  I think about if every generation goes through this, which they most undoubtedly do, however, the generations of now and tomorrow live in a way more connected world where information is immediate and accessible, so the news, usually bad news, travels quicker, and it’s way easier now to be exposed and be aware of it all, more than it’s ever been in generations past.

Continue reading “The year-end post, circa 2025” →

Dad Brog (#143): the surprisingly emotional aftermath

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not that I’ve gone around and had lengthy conversations about vasectomies leading into my own, but I still feel like there were a few things nobody talks about whenever the subject emerges.  I knew that the type of procedure I was going to have wasn’t going to be bad and in fact was probably one of the more efficient and painless ones, but I’m also someone who hasn’t ever had a surgery of any kind before in my life, so the feeling of being in a medical place for myself and laying back on a table for something done to me was completely foreign.

Not that I didn’t see this one coming, but it’s still very awkward to have people touching and handling your privates, and I found myself staring intently at the tiles on the ceiling and inadvertently holding my breath and feeling my legs go tense from time to time.  Felt like at times my junk were treated like Chinese stress balls the way they were being rolled around, and I get they’re feeling for any things out of the ordinary but was still a completely harrowing feeling all the same.

One thing that nobody that I’ve seen has talked about is the smell; and not from the standpoint that of being downstairs, the first bullet point on my pre-op instructions was to shower and shave fairly close to go-time, but the smell of things that are burned by the laser that my particular clinic was using.  I wasn’t entirely sure if it were errant hair or flesh or blood vessels, I didn’t look down at the procedure the entire time, but despite the fact that the local was doing a good job of nullifying feeling anything other than movement and the pressure of contact, it clearly doesn’t cancel out the scent of burning that emanated from the point of surgery.

However, what it all culminates in, and what serves as the impetus for this post was the surprising wave of emotions that seemed to bubble up after I was done with the procedure, which all in all wasn’t really painful as much as it was just awkward and comfortable as much as your junk being handled for 25 minutes could be.  But when I was done, walked out the door and into the car, I just felt almost like crying.  Don’t really know why, this was all part of the plan and I certainly don’t want to go through the rigors of having another baby, but all the same, this involuntary and reflexive wave of sadness just kind of washed up and I felt pretty sad.

I know I can be a headcase about things, but I feel like I’m kind of on my own here, at least as far as people I know who have also had vasectomies.  I asked a few of my friends if they felt sad afterward, and the consensus is pretty much no, so maybe it is just a me thing, but I’d wager that there are plenty of men out there who can relate, but then against we have people who lose their shit over the opening sequence of Up, and many who don’t too.

If I had to guess, it probably has to do with the sheer finality of the whole thing.  Sure, vasectomies are technically reversible, but it’s one of those things that just because they are doesn’t mean anyone wants to go through with it, and I’m at peace knowing I won’t father any more kids, but it’s just the fact that it’s a decision sealed with a laser that makes it feels a little heavy handed.  For all intents and purposes, this was done to be a permanent measure, and there’s something about said permanence that seems to trigger emotion within me.

Otherwise, what a day it’s been afterward.  Got to go to Willy’s and get some nachos, even if they were prepared horribly by some white guy that looked like Bill Burr, chilled at home while waiting to see if I would have any pain that wasn’t already there from going to the gym for the first time in a month, as my office was shut down due to malfunctioning elevators.  I took a nap for the first time in like forever, and woke up to discover that there was some pretty substantial leadership transitions going on at my company, and that another elevator malfunctioned and we might be back to another shutdown.

But the easy joke is that with me getting to rest, nap and eat rich food brought to me, is that I should have more vasectomies in the future to have these baller kinds of days, but at the same time, I don’t like feeling sad, so it’s really one of those weighing the pros and cons things, and that nothing in my life can happen without there being a correlating reaction somewhere else.

All the same, so ends my lineage as far as I’m concerned, it’ll be up to my kids and my sister’s kids in the future if there’s any hope for my family’s genetics to continue on.

Dad Brog (#142): Ending the pipeline

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not really sure how this post is going to turn out, but there’s inherently a lot of thoughts swirling around my head to the point where I feel like I should write something about it, but I’m getting a vasectomy.

Despite the fact that mythical wife and I are most certainly, definitely, irrefutably done with having any kids, admittedly there’s still something there in the noggin about the sheer finality of getting the snip, and although they are supposedly reversible, the intent is clear – I am not going to have any more kids ever again.  This, was always part of the plan, and yet there’s something, perhaps it’s the fact that I’ll have to have a surgery and I’ve never had any sort of surgery in my life before, or maybe it’s just the finality of the intent and scenario of it that has me feeling a little weird.

Make no mistake though, I don’t want anymore kids.  We don’t want anymore kids, mythical wife and I.  There is a 0% chance that I’m going to chicken out and not go through with it, not to mention the fact that I’ll be out $300 if I did, and I fucking hate the idea of wasted money as much as anything else, but I’d be lying if I weren’t feeling some strange feelings of apprehension and melancholy about what I’m going to go through.

But despite all the weird feelings and emotions, I know it in my head that I’m 100% making the right call and I will have no regrets afterward.  I have my children, they’re perfect and they’re all I want, and I have no desire to father anymore kids in my life.  Despite how many times I’ve been strapped for cash in my life and despite the curiosity and the enticement of getting paid to pleasure myself, I’ve never donated sperm before; I don’t want any mystery kids borne of a random selection in a catalog to a woman I don’t know showing up in my life later on.  As far as I am concerned, my genetics are ending, and if there was ever some form or archaic desire for my family’s genes to continue on, then that’s up to my daughters to do, if they ever so choose to procreate in the future.

Plus, the world is going backwards, and somehow women pretty much have fewer reproductive rights than they did before I was born which is a whole other can of worms that tends to make me feel sad for my wife, my daughters, and all the women in the world that I have care for, so it genuinely feels like I’m doing my part of being responsible, and being an ally by going through with a vasectomy, especially since I am most definitely done with having any additional children.

The last thing my household needs to have in their lives is an oops situation, where corrective measures couldn’t be utilized without becoming a fugitive, and the only legal alternative is to have another child, that wasn’t planned for.  Absolutely not.

So yeah, I’m going under the knife (or laser or whatever), and despite the weird state of mind the whole thing has me feeling as the clock ticks closer to my appointment, I know it in my head and in my heart that it is the right thing to do, and I will have no regrets about it.  I have my perfect kids, don’t want more, and mythical wife has done enough as far as shouldering the pain in the ass burden when it comes to further responsibilities.

The hardest part of every day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Is trying to suppress how difficult life is in conversation, because if I were to be too honest about it, I would come off as curmudgeon and probably seen as overly cynical when I’m just being honest, and then such would become my reputation if it already isn’t at this point, and because perception is reality, everyone around me would tread even lighter than they already do to the point where I would become alienated more than I already feel like I am.

Because if I were to explain that I wake up every single day of the week at 6:40 in order to be ahead of the kids as far as breakfast and preparation for the day goes and the only time I ever get a breather is when my mother-in-law visits or I’m physically out of pocket, that might sound kind of rough, to almost never get a breather or opportunity to sleep in, ever.

I love my kids, but they’re at an age where everything is a fight, everything is a power struggle, they’re going to bed later than they’ve ever gone before, and by the time they’re in bed, I’m usually already hangry and frustrated at the fact that I will now have maybe two, three hours if I’m willing to stay up on the later end, to actually not be a dad, which is a paltry amount of time to accomplish really anything, as if I had any hobbies left at this juncture of my life.

But first I have to reset the house for the next day of kid carnage, and the vast majority of the time it’s just me that’s doing any of it, adding to my daily frustration level.  I do the dishes, pack the kids’ lunches, pack my own lunch, generally tidy up what needs to be tidied up, and by the time I’m done with everything, I’ll maybe have an hour before I should really be thinking about going to bed in order for this song and dance to repeat the next day.

Yeah, my life really isn’t something that I imagine anyone would envy, other than the love I have and get from my beautiful kids, and along with the aforementioned struggles above, is the fact that I feel like I’m trapped inside a bubble of being incapable of expressing myself, other than a brog nobody reads which is the closest thing to an outlet I have it feels like a lot of the time.  I don’t feel capable of being able to unload with my family or friends and I definitely wouldn’t entertain the thought of opening up to colleagues.

But it’s fucked up that I feel it’s better to be disingenuous rather than entirely honest, because honesty would hit like a sledgehammer, and I just don’t think people are tough enough to be able to handle it.  I already feel like an island most of my life, which is absolutely frightening because the last person I want to be like is my island of a dad, but I just don’t think there’s anybody who could take the truth without it blowing up in some way shape or form.

I wonder what it says that I relate so well to mommy bloggers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In the connected world we live in full of prying digital eyes and ears that seem to exist solely to collate information for algorithms and targeted content, I was fed this blog article from some mommy blogger, talking about how lonely it felt being everyone’s B-list friend.

It was a headline that I immediately knew what it was going to be about before I even started to read it, but like a masochist I clicked on it out of curiosity to see how someone else felt about this fairly accurately named affliction.

And unsurprisingly, I feel as if this entire article could have been written by me, except with a little more feminine eloquence and emotional neediness.  But I definitely felt this article so very hard, and the examples of where they were resultantly made to feel B-list resonate so much with me, especially since becoming a parent, and transitioning into the inevitable zone of I have kids and lots of my friends don’t, and the gradual position of not only being excluded by everyone, but also no longer even considered for invitation.

I’m seldom mad or upset about it, that just seems to be the way life is for people who age and people who have children, but one thing I’ve always said is that there is tremendous power and consideration in the act of the ask alone, and although I know and most everyone knows that asking me do something is nine times out of ten going to result in a no I can’t, I always appreciate the ask, because it makes me feel like people still think and consider me.

Honestly though, even before kids, I felt this way a lot of the time, mostly because I was the sad-sack single guy for eternity, and I get that nobody always wanted an odd-numbered wheel on their activities.  Things improved a little bit once mythical girlfriend-now-wife came into the picture, but now that we have children and have stepped onto a less-adjacent plane of existence as most everyone around us, going back onto the B-list feels more prevalent than ever.

But going back to the article, it clearly hit home hard enough to pop the synapses in my brain to want to write about it, because it was that thought-provoking.  I don’t think it hurts me as much as it hurts the author of this post, but I see, I acknowledge and I can relate to so much of this.

Frankly if I’m being honest here, the only people in my life that I don’t feel like put me on the B-list are my children.  As much as I bemoan the workload sometimes, feel like I’m overwhelmed and tired of being a parent at times, when the day is over, my girls are the only ones who don’t make me feel like I’m B-list ever.  When they have bad dreams and wake up at night, they call for me.  When it’s the morning and they know it’s time to get up and have breakfast, they know it’s me.  When they’re distressed and need a hug and snuggle, they come to me.

This isn’t to say I resent everyone else for making me feel like I’m B-list.  Everyone else just has their own shit going on their lives, and it’s easy to take a self-sufficient machine like me for granted.  I feel like everyone else already does a lot of the time, and I don’t always feel comfortable expressing such opinions too often, so it’s just the norm.

I agree with the author that it’s not good to measuring self-worth by the effort others put into our relationships, but at the same time, it’s also kind of impossible to ignore the scales of relationships and when those around us are putting us into the B-list.  It’s always easy to say one thing, but doing them is a whole different matter, and in this particular case, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to struggle with chessboard of where we’re positioned, because frankly I think it’s human nature that everyone does, and those who don’t are either blind or lying.

All the same though, going back to the title of this post, I wonder what it says about me, that such thought-provoking mommy content is what is fed to me, and resonates with me so much.

Kid-free weekend musings

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I haven’t had to wake up before the sun rises to prepare and have breakfast ready for when my kids awake, I’ve still been getting up early.  The first morning, I had forgotten to disable my alarms that ensure that I’m up for the morning routine, and the second morning, the dog whined and woke me up because I had disabled my alarms but that meant she was stuck in the bedroom at the time in which her feeder would go off.

All the same, the idea of going back to sleep didn’t really cross my mind because I’m a neurotic doer who unfortunately often times sees sleep as a means to an end, and as much as I’d like to get more sleep in my life, as long as I feel like there’s an endless queue of things that need to be done instead, those will often times keep me out of bed despite knowing what pleasure sleeping without an alarm clock can bring.

So instead of sleeping more, or preparing a breakfast for the kids, I’ve actually had some calm mornings where I could actually feel a little bit like an old iteration of me for a little bit.  I went on a leisurely morning walk, alternatively to the virtual Peachtree Road Race I ran the morning prior.  I came back drenched in sweat because it’s humid as balls, but then I came home, changed clothes, logged into work, and unsurprisingly had a very slow remote day, where I was able to accomplish all sorts of side quests throughout the day.

Like hanging some picture frames that needed the 22 ft. ladder that I never get a chance to do when the kids are around, got an emissions test on my third car, went to the DMV to renew the tags and got out in two minutes because I used the self-serve kiosk that nobody else uses which left me feeling really good.  I did some kid laundry which felt good to not have to try to do it in a window in which they’re not sleeping so the noises don’t distract them, and I even got a new shelf for my garage to tidy up the shoe tornado that living in a home with nothing but females often results in.

Needless to say, I had a productive day which always puts me in a positive frame of mind, and I decided to reward myself by finally watching Fast X; a completely dumb movie which is about as surprising as white people liking Rivians, but also unsurprisingly enjoyable for me, even if I didn’t know that it was going to be a two-parter.

I won’t give anything away, but I have to say that casting Jason Momoa for the role he’s in seems like a whiff of colossal proportions.  I feel like the number one priority for the role was “look like he could be South American” but they didn’t take into account any of the character’s mannerisms, personality traits or general perceived look.  And as hunky as Momoa is, the reality is that he’s not a very talented actor, and it really says something when a Fast & Furious installment has pushed his acting chops beyond his capabilities.

All the same, can’t wait for the next one, which I feel like has to be the actual finale to the series.  Vin Diesel’s not getting any younger and it’s looking as such, the character development is heading in a direction that I’d say should be irreversible, but they seem to throw caution to the wind when it comes to those kind of rules, and the only thing I will give away is that Paul Walker’s character is still fucking alive despite the fact that the actor has been dead since Fast 7; they just can’t keep this ruse up forever!

Anyway, this morning, after the dog woke me up at 7:26am which might as well be 10am for me, I thought about possibly going back to sleep after taking her out to pee; but after we came back inside, the bowl was empty, because the feeder was empty because the dog eats like a horse, but then the tub of extra food was empty, which meant that I had to open up the new 40 lb. bag of dog food to fill the tub and feeder and bowl, and at that point I was just like fuck it, I’m staying up.

So, I got back on the horse and went for a run.  I’ve been coming to the grips that at this juncture in my life, my running speed isn’t what it used to be, and short of making some actual adjustments to my way of life, I don’t think it will get back there.  I’d been struggling to keep my pace under the 10 minute/mile as of late, and I chalked it up to poor diet, habits and complacency, and I was able to get it back down under ten, but that also was the result of several consecutive days of running while I was at my sister’s place in Richmond without having to be a parent.

My Virtual Peachtree was completed in 1:04:36, which I’m pretty sure the slowest timed 10K I’ve done since I started doing organized runs back in 2007 which was a little disappointing, but as I said, unless I really make some changes to a lot of things in my life, like taking stat points away from weight lifting and eating and putting them into running, things aren’t going to get any better as I age.

It’s a little inevitable since Father Time is undefeated, and the sooner I accept it, the less angst I’ll have about running as a whole.

So, I ran while trying to keep that mindset in place, and ran in a manner which didn’t have me gasping for air when I inevitably failed to complete a sub-30 minute 5K, which was the case, and just took solace in the fact that I was up and doing something, and when it comes to exercising, I’m fortunate to have always had the mindset that it is always a good use of time.

I’m not the fastest runner or strongest lifter, but I can confidently say that I’m probably the most consistent and dedicated exerciser that I know.  It’s never been a fad, it’s never been something I’ve done to attain a physical goal.  I made the choice to start hitting the gym and exercising back in 2006, and short of a few exceptions like coronavirus lockdowns, have I ever taken an extended period of time off from it.

No matter how down on life I might feel, how envious of the lives, accomplishments and lifestyles of other people, I feel like I always have exercise to fall back onto.  It is never a waste of time, and often times it helps get my head in a better place than which it started, or at least get my brain chugging along, which is what brought us to this point where I’ve been able to blather on so seamlessly this morning, after the run.