Tag: #Pandemic

  • 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.

  • Journaling at the Park

    Yesterday, it rained in the morning, which meant that we didn’t get to have our early park time. No running around for the kid, and making new friends. And no sitting on a bench and writing in my journal. Over the course of this pandemic, park time has become a very essential, and needed outlet for the kid and me. She gets to burn off energy and have social interactions with other kids, and I get to start my day with organizing my thoughts.

    It was a slight monkey wrench to our day, but the sun did come out later, so we were able to make a late day park visit. The later time allowed us to discovered a whole different group of kids that my daughter loved playing with, and I got to have the introspection from the end of a day, rather than the beginning.

    I have been writing in a journal since I was 18, and I have over 30 notebooks filled. I like to think of myself like Thoreau when it comes to writing in a journal, but do sometimes wonder if I’m not the crazy recluse guy in the neighborhood, jotting down meaningless things in his notebooks. (It’s a fine line.) I have been journaling so long, that it is an engrained habit. But they aren’t reference books. Only rarely do I pick one up and go through it to see what I was thinking way back when. And I don’t use them to work out “story ideas” or anything like a creative workbook/sketchbook. It’s just a catching place of ideas, thoughts, sketches, and feelings… maybe a little documentation of events, but not very often. Journaling for me is a cathartic exercise. It is immediate, spontaneous, and in the moment, which again and again, I seem to discover is a theme for me when it comes to the art I enjoy. With everything going on in the world right now, I need to have an outlet for all of these pent-up emotions, and hopefully, I can find a constructive use for them.

  • Covid Confession

    This has been a tough and trying day. Nothing really has gone the way any of us have expected.

    Except for the laundry. I got the laundry done on time.

    Today is the wife’s official first day at her new job. Being that she is still working at home, it doesn’t feel like too much has changed.

    We are down to the final 10 days before the kid starts school. And again, as she will be learning from home. It won’t be an enormous change, as she was learning from home in the Spring, so that doesn’t feel like it will change anything.

    Me, on the other hand, each day is pretty much the same. So, not much has changed there.

    Which means we all feel rather stuck. And it isn’t too hard to believe that. We have been doing the lock down for five and a half months now.

    No end in sight. Just plugging away.

    Ahhh…

    When I wake up in the morning, I do have this feeling of dread that there is this mountain of things that I have to get done, and also at the same time, I have the feeling that there is no way I will get them done.

    But I have to make sure the kid is okay, and that the wife is being supported, as she is the bread winner now and going to school at the same time, which is a huge burden/responsibility that can completely stress her out. She’s a good wife and mother.

    I just keep hoping that things will get better; at less stressful.

    One day…

  • New Writing Schedule for Fall

    The wife and I sat down and had the discussion about whether we were going to send our daughter to school this Fall. We know that the kid really, desperately, wants to be back in a classroom with her friends and her teacher. We also know that we just aren’t comfortable with the way the world is when it comes to Covid. I also understand that NYC is one of the safer places in America to be when it comes to infection rates, and that precautions are being taken with the interest of safety for students and teachers in mind.

    But, we still aren’t comfortable. And I can admit that this is based off a feeling, and not logic. My feeling is that I don’t want to put my kid at risk. Covid is too dangerous without a vaccine.

    So, we have had to also sit and rethink how we are going to handle the wife working full time from home, a full-time student at home, and this guy looking to steal moments to write. I was hoping that I would have about three hours on days when the kid was in school, but that doesn’t seem likely for the rest of this year.

    I’m not complaining. First, I don’t think I have the focus right now to sit and write for three hours straight. But, most importantly, my number one job is to take care of the kid; making sure she is safe, and gets the best education possible. It’s a small sacrifice to make on my part, and the reward of having this time with the kid is boundless.

  • New Lease on Social Media Life

    I think I’m detoxing from FaceBook right now.

    As the handful of you know, I got it an online argument with a friend on FaceBook about voting and the Postal Service. I posted on here what I had said to the guy, and I knew full well that after the last post I was done with it, but he would post something trying to egg me on in some way. But I was done, I had said my peace, and I didn’t want to play anymore. To hold to that commitment, I couldn’t go back on FaceBook, read his response, and then, basically, state the vicious cycle all over again.

    So, I haven’t been on FaceBook for two days now.

    I have no idea what is going on in people’s lives, and I think I am okay with that. The pandemic has given me too much free time, and I have wasted a great deal of it looking online to see how other people were using their time, and most of them appeared to be very productive. (I know everyone lies on the internet.) It created a feeling in me that I wasn’t doing enough, which wasn’t helpful, and in and return, I let myself get discouraged making it more difficult to motivate myself. But I know fully that I was letting this happen, and choosing to be discouraged.

    And also, in strange way, getting my dander up about an issue, taking time to think out my response, and being honest that I am passionate about something that affects others, did make me feel more connected to the world. I’m not saying that I’m about to turn into a social media activist, because action in the real world is needed, not posting on a feed, but I need to get off my ass and help out in this world again.