Been a Minute in Life

Oh man, it’s been a minute since I wrote here eh?

Well there’s a lot that’s changed in a (checks notes) Year and a half? Jesus no wonder I’m in a mental health crisis state. That’s too long to go without de-fragging (Hi 90’s kids!) my brain.

Well lets go over some things from my last entry. I wrote:
“Even given our (work’s) current trajectory, I’m not sure if it will still exist next year. Matter-of-fact I fully doubt it will exist next year.”

Called it. They closed down our facility in… August? of 2023. 2 days after I quit to become a stay-at-home dad. So it rang true that the facility literally couldn’t survive without me. It’s a good feeling (albeit a little self serving) but I felt terrible for all the people I enjoyed working with. Mass layoffs due to managerial incompetence is never a good feeling. It’s also shocking how many people, after 2 major layoffs, still thought that the place was going to survive. I get the desire to be ignorant and live in bliss that there’s no problems and everything will be fine, but if I were in the position of the workers, I would have been the rat jumping the sinking ship.

Regardless, I had plans to enter into my newest state of employment as a stay-at-home dad, as previously mentioned, and let me tell you, I don’t like it. I enjoy taking care of my kid but there’s this whole… reward cycle loop of dopamine from ‘work work’ that has been engrained in my being by my parents since I was a child. Y’know that whole style of child reering where “We just want you to be a function memeber of society and work, and pay taxes and if you’re not doing that then you’re a schleb.” Okay so they never said the last part but my parents definately raised me to be a work-force work-horse and I never really realized how much it was an indoctrination until I was out of it and it really shattered my identity. Even now, as I write this at 330am, I’m not sure where I stand, what I’m doing or if I’m even able to describe myself as successful.

My wife, bless her supportive little heart, makes sure to shower me in positive statements about how what I’m doing is important to her and the kids and yadda, yadda, yadda, but without that idea of climbing the ladder or working toward raises and all that other shit that I’ve learned to feed off of, it’s really difficult for me to find motivation in the day-to-day when my only reason to continue doing what I’m doing is that there’s litterally no spots in day-cares for my son. (Who, at 15 months is almost as tall as our 4 year old, and weighs about 10 lbs less. The kids a fucking Brick-House)

As for my daughter (the non-debateably prettiest girl in the world) She’s in Ballet classes and ‘Little Ninja’ Classes now, so that keeps me busy 2 days of the week. We’re making plans to go trick-or-treating with other parents out in the wild and I’m basically using her as a social jumping-off point with other parents because I’ve fallen into that trap where my child is my only outlet for social activity now that I’m not working.

Let me tell ya, once you’re not working there’s this whole new world of “How the fuck do I meet people?” And like… people I like. I’ve tried a dating app (For meeting friends, because somehow everyone is shocked that my wife trusts me enough for that) and that was fine for micro-friendships. Like nothing of value came from it despite my best efforts.

There’s a part of me, the TeenChat part of me, (Coles notes for those that don’t know my back-story - I spent a lot of time in a chat as a teenager) that misses that sense of community that we built back then. And to find a similar community like that is really difficult. There’s either this while para-social streamer community where everyone is hyper focused on the one wearing the crown, which is really weird to me as an adult, or like… these massive online communities focused around one game and those communities tend to be so swamped with people that it’s… intimidating isn’t the right word, inundating? it’s just too much and I’m finding myself struggling with just wanting a small group of people to vibe with. Something that lasts longer than a couple of weeks or months anyway.

I’ve always had difficulty maintaining relationships with people that don’t force themselves upon me. I’m very aware that I’m saying “I don’t know anyone who will put in the effort to be my friend” all the while I put in little to no effort to maintain those friends. Very much the type to worry that when I reach out to friends that I’m bothering them.

Other fun updates about me:
I got really into Audio books like “The Wandering Inn” and “He who fights with monsters”
I got a vascectomy, of which the test results came back “Inconclusive” which really pisses me off because now I have to go cum-in-a-cup at some office space. Can’t wait for that.......
I’ve recently joined a kick-boxing class

lets see if I can make images work…

Nope! Alright, now we know!