Tag: #family

  • Getting Covid Tested

    A strange thing happened to me late in the morning, yesterday; I felt like I had a cold. I felt fatigued, had a stuffy nose, and there was a scratchy feeling in the back of my throat. I hadn’t felt symptoms like this in over a year, and it really threw me off.

    In the olden days, I would get at least one cold a year, and it usually happened after the kid got sick. The last time I remember feeling sick was around New Year’s 2019/20, and that was from a cold that was going around the office. Since Covid started, and the kid has been out of school, we have adopted a healthy regimen of hand washing, mask wearing, and keeping out distance. What this has produced is an epically long time since anyone has been sick in our home.

    So, as this “cold” feeling kept increasing in me over the course of the day, I was a little dumbfounded how I could be sick, as no one else in our home is. Odds are that it is just a cold, but the reality is that I am the one in the family that runs all of the errands, and as such, if there is a chance that this could be Covid, I should find out as soon as possible, and not endanger anyone else in the neighborhood.

    I had to go get tested.

    Fortunately, there is a City run medical center in our neighborhood, and I headed over for a test. This would be my second time being at this location to get tested. I was pretty surprised that there wasn’t a line; just five of us waiting. Also, having been though before for a test, I was in and out pretty quick. Total time there, maybe fifteen minutes.

    Now, I am in the limbo of waiting for the test result. I actually feel better this morning, but I know if it is Covid, that really doesn’t mean anything. I have to wait, and that does drive me crazy. I can’t run the family errands, and I just have to sit around. I am sure it is nothing, and I am acting out of caution, but I really don’t want to think about if I did get it.

  • Merry Christmas, Thank You, and 2020

    Say everybody, I’m going to take the next few days off for the Christmas Holiday, and won’t be consistently back at it till the start of the New Year. So, I wanted to wish everyone out there in the writing/blogging world a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a general Happy Holidays.

    I also wanted to say thank you for following this little experiment of a blog. Since I started putting a forth a serious effort toward writing back at the end of July, I have doubled my followers, and grown in views, visitors and likes. Your support has been very encouraging, and reinforced that doing the work is worth it.

    As we all know, 2020 has been one of the strangest, most awful, and plain sad years ever. Since Thanksgiving, I have been trying hard to find some encouraging… anything to try and salvage my emotional well-being from the onslaught of this year. What I have come to see is that I should never take for granted my family, friends, and community I live in. How fragile this fabric is that connects us all together, yet how strong is our desire to be connected.

    Again, thank you readers, Happy Holidays, and if I don’t see you before, I’ll talk to you in 2021.

  • The Courage to Plan for a Future

    Last night, after we had put our daughter to bed, the wife and I had a discussion about trying to retire our debt, yet again. This time around, we had the conversation while not have a few drinks. It made the conversation more logical, but clearly, less fun.

    Yup, we have credit card debt, and student loans, and a car loan as well. It’s a lot. This weighs on us all the time, and it seems like “debt” always finds a way to work into whatever conversation we are having. 2020 was the year that we were to get on top of it, and in March, it really looked like it was going to happen… And we all know what came next.

    What we were really trying to speak about last night was, did we have the courage to start planning for the future? I still don’t think we are there yet. The debt is a big problem, but so is getting the kid back into school, and even if she does get back into class every day, that doesn’t give me the ability to go out and get a job, as she will be out of class at 2:30, and with no afterschool program for her to be a part of, then I will need to be available for pick up. So, looks like I will be Stay at Home Dad for a while longer.

    And I enjoy being a Stay at Home Dad. I love all the time I get to spend with my daughter; helping her learn, playing with her, discovering things with her, creating things with her. It really is a gift, the best silver lining to come out of this whole mess.

    But…

    But, if I want to give her a good future, and stability, we have to take care of our finances. It’s not insurmountable, and we have been in a worse situation before. It just means that a sacrifice needs to be made.

    Like I said, we need a little courage.

  • My Mother’s Birthday

    Today would have been my mother’s 74th birthday. This is the third of her birthdays that has arrived without her presence. The first was the worse, and last year wasn’t much better. And this year is 2020, so it’s just as awful as it could be.

    My mother’s death is wrapped around me, not tightly, but it is all over me. It is a blanket of sadness. There are moments when I get choked up, and I still cry occasionally about her death, button the whole, I can speak about it open, and honestly. I speak most often with my daughter about it. This was her first experience of death, and she does miss her grandmother. Talking does help, and talking about memories I have of my mother to my daughter, does make thing easier.

    But it is a sadness. A feeling that I could be happier, but that I just won’t ever be that happy again. I find joy and happiness with my family, and friends, and then at the end of the night, as I drift off, or hope to drift off to sleep, there is that little honest moment that I am reminded that I can’t talk to her.

    I also know that her death has put me in a depression, one that is with me, and will be with me for some time to come. I know it because the things that I used to enjoy before her death, just don’t bring me that joy anymore. I know the signs of depression. I have dealt with it many times before, and I have always come out on the other side, and better for it. I know that this will happen again, because I want to be in a good place again, and I also have great people in my life that I can lean on.

    Still, I do miss my mom.

  • Thanksgiving

    2020 has been a shit filled dumpster on fire, floating down a river.

    And for my family, we have had a tough three years for that matter. Moves, job loss, pandemic, family tragedy, the 2020 election, but we are still here. We are still planning for tomorrow, still dreaming, still trying to make life better for our kid.

    My Grandma used to tell me, “You gotta have goals. Gotta have something to look forward to.” The wife and I have latched onto that idea; working toward something. Not that we think that everything will go back to normal, or that in three months everything will be better. We just know that we are working toward a better someday, and that’s about as realistic as we can get.

    And in that sense, there have been a few good things. I have spent so much great quality time with my daughter. I am watching her learn how to read, and write her first sentences, and see that spark of learning in her eye. That’s something real, and honest, and wonderful to experience. In this year, I have been able to rekindle my love of writing, and the creative process. Also in this year of insanity, I have watched my wife take on more than she thought she was capable of, and come out on the other end more confidant and successful. I am amazed by her. I feel that we still do make a great team, and I think I love her more than the day I told her I loved her on 14th street in front of Trader Joe’s way back in 2007.

    This was not a great year, but I still have my family who is healthy, my great friends who I miss and can’t wait to see again, and I still have my hope in things getting better.

    Happy Thanksgiving Everybody