So the writing life. Work a full time job and a single dad to a teen and a tween girls. That’s an education. A guy learns more about girl problems from them than in all the former wives combined. No joke. A dad also learns the long game. I mean it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day. Up as 0445 or at least hitting the damned snooze button with the oldest girl’s cat thinking that means it’s time to jump up on the bed and knead my face. Such a way to start the day. Get up and get kids out of bed and fed and their medicines and tell them bye with a hug and a kiss before the commute. Then the day where I am not going to say anything funny about or even obliquely reference because girls got to eat. Then get home and get all the chores done and run errands for the girls and make dinner and yard work and housework.
Plus there is the ubiquitous school work and project assistance that seems engineered to make parents suffer through the indignities of primary school all over again. Such, such were the joys.
To write. Just a few minutes at a time and a lot of thinking about essays and stories that may never be written, because the time must be focused on a project at hand. Or maybe three, but still… You now all the yadda yadda everyone has heard about a million times. It’s tough, but no one really cares because they have their own lives and their own tough things to go through.
I realized that in my small town the only people who know me by name are my daughter’s friends, their piano teacher, the art teacher, the guitar teacher, and the guy at the liquor store.
The girls pretty much get all my time. So it is only a little amusing when teachers say I need to be more involved with my children’s education. Am I right parents? The schools have entire staffs and teachers and not only do they act like I don’t do enough, apparently the taxpayers in my area are skinflints so we need to have fundraisers every other week, not to mention we have to pay for the busses. “I am involved!” I feel like yelling at them. But I don’t yell at them. Once. Okay twice. But it wasn’t about the money. Okay okay, five times. I have two kids after all and the schools are full of shit heads, adult and childish. My youngest made the observation that all the teachers and staff preach about anti-bullying and are the biggest bullies. So all the time struggle. But big deal. I can struggle with the best of them.
Yesterday the youngest was sick. Today the oldest is sick with a fever and throwing up all over the place and on the couch making noises I’ve only heard in low budget horror films and nature documentaries.
I get four hours sleep go to work where the safety meeting is about fatigue and getting enough sleep. Ironic. But this is only two days. I’ve been a single dad two years now. Seriously two years and both girls are still alive. Who knew? In the last two years that I’ve been a single dad, this is nothing. I could fill a book with the bad shit that’s happened. But I won’t. And, although it shivers me to say this, it might get worse. It is a possibility we must always be braced for because two years ain’t all that much. So the writing. I keep at it. When the going gets tough, the tough keep writing. That’s kind of bullshit too, but it looks good in print. But keep going. That’s the best a person can do. Run it over in the head. Take notes. Sit down and put in a solid two or three minutes at a time. Play the long game. Get caught up in the short term and then what? What do I know? I can’t even muster the strength to make my bed, and I’m out of beer.
