{"id":47237,"date":"2020-08-27T11:30:08","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T15:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=47237"},"modified":"2020-08-27T19:20:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T23:20:27","slug":"new-father-brogging-018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=47237","title":{"rendered":"New Father Brogging, #018"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been a little bit in the pits lately, and it\u2019s one of those situations where I think about the things that are making me feel down, and they bring me down more, and starts this cycle of negative thinking that only gets gradually worse and worse if I don\u2019t talk about it and admit that I\u2019m feeling a little depressed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Firstly, by no means necessary is any of my recent funk on account of my precious baby child doing anything wrong; if anything at all, she\u2019s the one steady and greatest and brightest thing in my life, as should not really be of a surprise, and frankly, my only woes in regards to my child is that I feel guilty that I\u2019m not enjoying my paternity time as much as I probably should.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, I\u2019d love to be able to take her out of the house and go and see things, but in in the coronavirus-addled world we live in, such isn\u2019t necessarily a good idea, not to mention the feed and nap routine we\u2019re trying to constantly reinforce doesn\u2019t exactly make it convenient to leave the house and expect to enjoy ourselves and be back at the bassinet approximately two hours later.\u00a0 But there are admittedly times in which I feel like I\u2019m failing as a father, by not always having an idea or things to do with my child, and I\u2019m always worried that I\u2019m boring her or not stimulating her enough to where that budding developing brain is actually growing.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t handle with particular stresses very well, and in the case of my house, which has had some recent issues due to the bipolar Georgia weather, I\u2019m frustrated and aggravated at how long and how much it\u2019s going to cost to get things fixed, and if I stop and think about all the moving parts in play, it tends to get me all anxious with annoyance, which doesn\u2019t help.<\/span><\/p>\n

To boil it down, my skylight issue was an easy solve, since that was basically a $430 caulk job that has prevented further moisture from getting in, but the window issue I\u2019m having, is going to be substantially more, and I\u2019m in this situation where I\u2019m wondering if I had hired an actual window company from the onset instead of assuming it was just a simple caulk job here too, and hiring a handyman, would\u2019ve saved me a tremendous amount of time, money and aggravation, instead of the route that I\u2019m on right now.\u00a0 But because I\u2019ve already committed, I\u2019m doing myself a favor and not finding out, because if it turns out to be a substantial savings on all accounts, I\u2019m just going to end up way more perturbed than I already am.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

So I decided to go with a local handyman, because he\u2019s nice, seems honest enough, and I\u2019ve already learned that he\u2019s a hard-working father of six who clearly needs the business and I\u2019m an empathetic sucker who wants to give him business, but at the same time, his turnaround hasn\u2019t been the fastest, mostly on account of the aforementioned bipolar Georgia weather, but also the fact that being a one-man operation, he doesn\u2019t have all the necessary equipment of his own, and put the onus on me to rent a scissor lift, so he can get 26 feet high to deal with this high-ass window.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, I\u2019m putting blind faith in a person I don\u2019t really know, to do the right thing when it comes to operating a scissor lift that\u2019s really not meant to be operated on grass and pray to god he doesn\u2019t get it stuck or fuck it up, because then the cost of that shit is most definitely on me.\u00a0 All I can really do to punish this guy is blast him on the internet, and leave him a shitty review on Thumbtack if he fucks up, but there\u2019s nothing that says he can\u2019t just cut and run if shit hits the fan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, there\u2019s a ton of trust and hope in a guy to do the job right and successfully, when there are plenty of red flags, mostly because I\u2019m a sucker who wants to shop small and help the little guy, but there\u2019s a tremendous amount of risk I\u2019m assuming in the process, and I don\u2019t even know if this repair should really cost this much at all.\u00a0 Bottom line is that I hope one way or another, all of this nonsense is resolved today, and I don\u2019t have to worry about it beyond today, that\u2019s all I really want.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Something else that knocked me down a peg recently, is that I was outright rejected for a job that I honestly thought I should\u2019ve probably gotten at least a callback or some form of communication other than the generic form email that all failed applicants get.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s silly to get any sort of entitlement to such luxuries in the competitive job market we live in, but I had some very specific qualifications and industry requirements that I felt would surely get me some sort of contact, but I was clearly mistaken.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody likes rejection in the first place, but honestly, yeah, I thought there was the potential that I was willing to take a step backwards professionally, for a step forwards in terms of title and potentially pay, and I was a little off-put that I was turned down.\u00a0 Yeah I know the arrogance and first-world problem nature of such a situation, but still, it did add a turd into my punch bowl that I didn\u2019t need compounding my current angst.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Why was I looking for work?\u00a0 No, nothing is nuclear with my current job, but when the day is over, I\u2019m never not looking for potential career moves, especially if it\u2019s for the right reasons.\u00a0 I\u2019m long past the days of thinking everything is going to be hunky-dory on a daily basis, and am ready to settle down for the rest of my career, and it\u2019s na\u00efve of me to think that things couldn\u2019t ever not turn south, and to not have any feelers out in the waters in the event anything does.<\/span><\/p>\n

Admittedly, things at work aren\u2019t entirely peaches and cream either, and I did feel like I went into paternity time on a little bit of a sour note, but it\u2019s nothing that I can\u2019t handle when I go back, but I figured if there were ever a good as time as any to keep my eyes peeled, it\u2019s when I\u2019m not at work.\u00a0 I do feel a little bit of dread of going back, and that\u2019s definitely not a good thing, because if there\u2019s one thing that I\u2019ve experienced in my life is being mentally unprepared to go back to work, so I\u2019ve got the next month to get my shit mentally back together, otherwise it\u2019s going to be an uncomfortable time when I report back in.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately it all amounts to the notion that there are many external factors that are distracting me from enjoying my paternity time as much as I feel like I should be, and the thought of that alone is enough to cause guilt in itself which brings me down a little bit more.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is where I\u2019m hoping admitting to my frustrations and putting things out in writing can help me confront my issues, but most importantly, get the fuck over them, so that I can enjoy and appreciate the time I\u2019m getting to have with my child, and not be so bogged down with a whole bunch of things that are really out of my control, because this is the time in which I really should be treasuring more than I currently am.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been a little bit in the pits lately, and it\u2019s one of those situations where I think about the things that are making me feel down, and they bring me down more, and starts this cycle of negative thinking that only gets gradually worse and worse if I don\u2019t talk about it and admit … Continue reading New Father Brogging, #018<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,79,193,45,121,37,192],"class_list":["post-47237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-cashmoney","tag-dad","tag-fail","tag-homeownership","tag-job","tag-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47238,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47237\/revisions\/47238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}