With a post title like this, one might think that this was going to be yet another whiny, my-life-is-difficult diatribe where it can be assumed that I’m in a foul mood of some sort. The thing is, I’m actually not in a particularly bad mood or anything, but it is just something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, and I just felt like typing out some words to see if anything comes to fruition, as that’s something the brog has served for me occasionally throughout the literal decades.
But to get to the point, I feel as if the vast majority of my life these days is spent making sacrifices all the time. I don’t drive my own car into work most of the time, because my car is the big safe dadmobile with the childrens’ seats already set up in them, and it’s left with my au pair so that she can drop off and pick up my children from pre-K. I drive our third car, which has served me fine, but it is older, needs more care, and lacks some of the conveniences that my own car provides.
At home, I no longer have an office or a space of my own because of our choice to employ an au pair, which is no knock on them, as I still consider it one of the best decisions we made as parents, and one that I would easily recommend to other parents of young children. But the point remains, when the house gets crowded, or I feel the want or need to just go somewhere in my own house to hide out and take a breath in, I don’t always have such a reprieve. This was exacerbated numerous times over the last few weeks with several house guests, and I found myself in a position where I just wanted a little bit of privacy and couldn’t have it.
Most of the time however though, are the sacrifices of my time and general self I feel that I make, and I sometimes ponder if I’m doing it too much. I basically have no hobbies left because I don’t have time for them because my weekdays are all spent working, parenting and then I have like 3-4 hours a night “off” which doesn’t account of the time it takes to clean up after the kids, reset the house, and prepare a litany of things for the following day, so I really have like two hours a night in which I’m truly free to be off and relax, but not without a clock over my head knowing that I have to sleep at a sensible time, so often times I don’t do anything that substantial or the things I want to commit meaningful time to because two hours a night just doesn’t cut it.
On our most recent “vacation” I sacrificed myself to ensure that our au pair could get to experience some things about Disney World, since it is important to me that she gets to actually live some semblance of life while here, and not just be a nanny to the kids, but what it results in is me taking kid duty and ultimately not getting to really do anything that I might want to do, not that I could think of anything I’d want to do in Disney World anymore these days.
The point is, I feel like I’m always in a state of constant sacrifice that I don’t really know where I’m generally at with my life anymore. All I want is just a single day in which I can sleep in and not have to be the first one up, preparing breakfast, preparing everything, dealing with the girls’ cranky morning tantrums, and have some substantial time to myself. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but I haven’t found myself in a position to be able to enjoy such considerations in quite some time, and I’m pretty sure the last time I was able to take some time off, was when I hopped on a plane to go to Texas to visit my brother. But opportunities like that are few and far between, because I’m financially strapped because I’m always sacrificing everything I make to try to support a lifestyle that might be a little too extravagant for my personal preference.
I read a book not long ago about a half-Korean girl dealing with the passing of her mother to cancer. Piggybacking off my prior post about crying, I think I was drawn to this book because I knew it was going to be a real tear-jerker and I was seeking out something to help burst my dams, but it was still a good read. But one of the takeaways from the book, and I’m sure it was really meant to be sage wisdom passed down from a Korean mother to her daughter, but I feel like it could apply to a Korean man like me, was that far too often, there are people who give 100% of themselves to their families. Such is not necessarily a bad thing, especially at the ages of my children, they need everything I can give to them, but her wisdom was to hold back 10% of one’s selves, and keep it for ourselves.
That stuck with me, because I feel like I’m currently living a life where I’m constantly giving 100% to my family, but in doing so, I’m completely devoid of having absolutely anything for myself. Recently, I’m trying to look for ways to try and gain back any percentage of myself, and even if I succeed, I highly doubt that I’ll be able to get up to 10%. I guess I’m just such a sacrifice-er, that if I can get to like 5% of myself back, that should be considered a win.
I tried to treat myself to a new pair of shoes; but like so many indulgences in the world, whenever I find something that I might like, it turns out to be what everyone else tends to like, and the specific shoes that I decided I want a pair of, apparently, they’re so hard to get a hold of, that when Foot Locker gets a new shipment of them in, they’re basically treated like an online queue lottery system that everyone has to fight over, and only the lucky ping lottery winners actually get an opportunity to get. Seriously, I made it through the virtual queue in three minutes, but my size was apparently already sold out, and within ten minutes, they were sold out of all sizes, presumably because of re-sellers and StockX pirates just grabbing anything they can get their hands on.
So, so much for trying to get any semblance of any % back for myself in that regard, back to the drawing board. But the bottom line is that I just need to stop sacrificing 100% of myself, and find little ways to keep semblances of me, for myself, otherwise I end up as, well, this. An angsty, emotionally volatile, usually irritable and mad, deep-fried burnt out dad.
