Tag: Life

  • Happy, Yet Not Secure

    The other day, I was trying to explain to my wife how I feel most days, which is happy but completely insecure. And this, is a vast improvement over the last couple of years.

    The insecurity is not whole heartedly an emotional insecurity. It’s a financial and general safety insecurity. When I have written about our financial situation, I have always tried to be as honest as possible without betraying any personal information – and the honest assessment of our financial situation is that we are in debt. The debt (credit cards, car loans, and student loans) is manageable, but also just large enough to delay us from making sound investments in our future. Though we have made progress, it does feel like this debt will never be overcome, and because of that, the feeling of a disaster being around the corner is always with me. A disaster that will ruin us, or set us back for years. This is the feeling of insecurity that I have daily.

    But I can honestly say that this is the happiest I have been in a very long time. It’s been a little over five years since my mom’s passing, but it still feels recent. It’s difficult losing your mother, and I did have an especially close relationship with mine, and with her gone, everything felt sad. No matter what I did, or my wife did, or the kid did, there was the tinge of sadness always right at the edge of everything. It’s taken awhile, but the joy has started to return, and it’s fully based in an appreciation of the love that is around me. For that, I am grateful that I do have friends and a family to share with.

    Yet, I am left with this dualism in my life; there is so much love and joy, but also I can’t shake the feeling that I have sand underneath my feet. At best I can say that these feelings exist in a balance; nether one is stronger than the other. And the truth is that I often have to force myself to appreciate the joy and love that is around me.

    I believe that being happy is a choice. But security? Do I have to earn that?

  • ODDS and ENDS: Recovery, Tottenham’s Next Season, and This Year

    (The future is in your lap…)

    Today is the first day that I feel 100% normal. Yesterday was like 95%, and I think that had to do with the side effects of the medication I was on. Yeah, Covid sucks, and I am glad that I had avoided it for four years. I am also aware that I had a very mild case, as I would say that it felt more like I had a bad cold than anything else. Also, the being exhausted all the time made me feel like I have lost a week of my life; I just couldn’t stop sleeping, which wasn’t as pleasurable as I had hoped. I just felt lazy. Now that I am back, I have the desire to exceptionally over exert myself to compensate for my “time off.”

    Tottenham Hotspur will not play in the Champions League next season, but they will qualify for the one of the two other European football tournaments. With Spurs final game against already relegated Sheffield, odds are that Tottenham are Europa League bound. This is an improvement over last season, but I can’t shake the feeling that the team choked during the second half of the season. Ah… next season. And there is a European Cup this Summer!

    Does it feel like this year has flown by for anyone else? Swear to God, it feels like we were just wrapping up New Years like a month ago. I know that I wrote a blog about how we had planned our Summer already, and just the other day, the kid’s school sent out the academic calendar for 24/25, and it’s like Fall is basically here already. I got an email last week about getting ready for the Great Pumpkin Blaze for Halloween. But with all of this, it dawned on me that kid will leave for college in 9 years, which means we are halfway through our time with her. Nine years of being a parent has flown by, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but I wish it would slow down just a little bit. Perhaps I am to blame, as I forget that most of what I busy myself with really doesn’t matter.

  • And I Had Been Doing A Good Job (Unedited)

    This week, I had a plan. I put it together last week, as I was tired of my day slipping away from me, and not getting the things done that I really had my mind set in accomplishing. Knowing that this issue was caused by me (and if you have read this blog long enough, I often complain about my lack of focus and discipline) I sat down and scheduled when I would journal, when I would blog, when I would work on fiction, when I would read, do errands, shower, walk the dog, eat lunch… yes, I admit I went a little over board, but trusting myself had failed miserably.

    The times in my life when I was the most focused and disciplined was when I was working, and especially when I was in management roles. During those periods, I did have to schedule out my whole day, just to make sure that I got everything taken care of. And on the whole, it worked rather well.

    This week did start of very well. Monday and Tuesday went completely according to plan. AND I got to bed on time. Then Wednesday was rocky only because there was an unexpected illness in the home, and I do have responsibility to take care of my family. In the end, on Wednesday, I only missed going to the gym, but I accomplished everything else.

    And then today, I fell off the wagon.

    The day started great, and I was running ahead of schedule. I ordered the flower girl dress that my daughter needs for the wedding she is taking part in this Summer. I called the pediatrician’s office, and made an appointment for the kid, while simultaneously balancing the checkbook. I was on fire, which is why I decided to update and back up my iPhone on my Mac, which also meant updating the iCloud account, and…

    Goodbye Morning!

    Because once I downloaded the pics off my phone, I had to go through and delete the pictures I didn’t want anymore, which meant going through 5,000+ picture. See, I hadn’t backed up my phone in four years, and I don’t know why I thought this would be a fast process.

    (My wife had purple hair in the Pandemic, and she looked very good with it. I found the pictures which remined me of that.)

    And then, because I have no self-control, I thought that I would dig out our old Mac Mini and set that up as a hub for the family. About thirty minutes into that project, it finally dawned on me that I had pretty much shot my morning to shit, and if I didn’t stop I would lose the whole day.

    So, I am sharing this with you, let’s call it a cautionary tale, as I still want to get something done.

    Blog is done.

    I still need to journal, work on a story that is killing me to finish, get some reading in, and a sketch. I only have three hours until the kid is out of school.

    Wish me luck.

  • Broken Car Window Throws Off Local Man’s Day

    By Matthew Groff

    April 3, 2024, 11:37am

    When I walked out of my apartment on Tuesday morning, it was an overcast and drizzly day, which felt appropriate for having to move my car for the street sweeper, as Alt Side Parking is one of my least favorite “New York” things that I have to do, sometimes twice a week. The closer I got to my car, I noticed that the car parked behind me had their back window smashed out. “That sucks,” was my first thought. And then I saw my car…

    “This really sucks,” was my next thought.

    And though I knew that my whole day just got shot to shit, I wasn’t that upset. I called my insurance company, and got that process started. A woman came up to my car and told me that she also got her back window smashed in (four cars total got broken into) and she just called the cops who were on the way. I texted my wife and let her know what had happened, and she was pretty annoyed.

    My insurance put me in contact with a window replacement company, and I was making arrangements with them when the cops rolled up. Clearly, most people don’t put the glass people on hold, because when I told him I needed to speak to the police, he seemed annoyed with me. Anyway, I was raised that when the cops show up, you talk to them right away.

    The police took a statement from me, said they were sorry for the situation, and wanted to know if anything was stolen. A cooler bag, I said. That worth anything, the cop asked. No, it was an old cooler bag, I answered. So nothing was stolen, the cop finished. Nothing was stolen, I agreed. The cops were nice, but I think we all knew that there wasn’t anything they could do, but I appreciate the effort.

    I called the glass people back, and made arrangements for them to come replace the window on Wednesday. I went to the hardware store on the block and got some duct tape and plastic to cover up the window. The wife came out and helped me with it. Not our best work, but it would do.

    Then it really started raining.

    Then the glass people called back saying that they had to reschedule because of the three days of rain we were about to get. How does Friday afternoon sound, they asked. Not good, I said. We’ll see you on Friday afternoon, they told me.

    Then I got annoyed. Not with the glass people, because logically I get it. You can’t replace windows in the rain, as coming out to your car is their whole business. What I was annoyed at was that somehow having to reschedule made me feel like I wasn’t in control of this situation anymore.

    Then I checked on the plastic over the widow to find out that our “not the best work”, in fact, was regular “bad” work; Water was getting in the car.

    Then I really felt powerless. Three days of rain, water getting into the car, and the new window won’t show up until Friday afternoon.

    Luckily, I have a wife who can fight through my annoyance and powerlessness, when it occasionally happens to me, and found a nearby parking garage for the car to sit in for the next three days. Which is smart and makes sense, and though costs us some money, at least the car is staying dry.

    And through all of this, my annoyance and having my day thrown off, I never thought about the person who broke into my car. I never felt anger at this faceless person, or entertained feelings of wanting to get revenge, and any angsty questions of “why did this have to happen to me?”

    This whole thing feels like stepping in dog shit. This sucks, and I have to clean up my shoes, but it happens from time to time.

  • Day’s Going Sideways

    Oh, this day has been fighting very hard to slip out of my control and get me either to give up, or go in another, more angry, direction. But I have been pushing back.

    The main culprits are credit card and insurance payments, those bastard brothers who have caused many heated phone calls to call centers looking for explanations. In both of these cases, the phone center people were very nice, and actually did help me. The credit card people refunded a charge no questions asked, but it will take three days to hit my account. The insurance will take fifteen days before they will be authorized to refund the account. Both issues were resolved (I’ll believe it when the money hits our account) but I am left wondering if this is just an example of “threshold of tolerance” polices – you know, when a company makes getting what you want such an annoying burden, that you give up rather than follow through.

    But, I’m not letting this shit on my day, damn it!

    I got chores, and errands, and pick-ups, and phone calls, and blog posts, and journaling, and hopefully starting a second draft of this story, and then homework, making dinner, dog walking, and I’m sure there is something else in there I’m forgetting…