It has been hard lately. I have been constantly exhausted from looking after Brandon. I had no energy left at the end of each day to write a blog post or make a progress with building my shop. I tried to at least read some books but even that was not feasible on many days.
It was not supposed to be like this.
My wrist has recovered 99% and the weather has been getting warmer. Brandon started attending preschool and that provided me with 2–2.5 hours of free time in the morning. I was looking forward to building my shop and get back into woodworking.
Then, Brandon got sick from all the new germs he has been exposed to at school and the recent field trip. He was off school for a week and then for another 2 weeks. We went to ER late at night because he wasn’t able to breathe due to croup.
Other chores entered my to-do list. I had lots of communication with my real estate agent to oversea some transactions. Tax return preparation also took some time.
I thought about hiring a babysitter but Brandon’s schedule has been so random that I could not see how to divide my day and host a babysitter just yet.
I told myself, “excuse after excuses.” Then I remembered to be more compassionate with myself. This is a new struggle of being a dad. It’s all new to me. It’s going to take some time to get the hang of this.
Determined to make at least one tiny step towards my goal, I even had a goal one day to just unscrew one of the outlets in the garage to see how I can add extra outlets.
I once had a goal of fine tuning my table saw. Just aligning some parts of the saw. That was my goal for the day. It took the full 1.5 hrs of free time I had while Brandon was at school.
Lack of progress is frustrating. Raising a child is a lot harder than I thought. But, I find a lot of things to be grateful of everyday. There is a lot that is actually going very well in my life. I try to remember that. The previous post about what it means to be grateful really helped me internalize the idea better.
Earlier today, I saw this clip on YouTube. It’s a clip from a Korean TV show featuring an interview with a successful actress (Kim Heeae). I have seen her work and am familiar with her presence on screen. I learned from this clip that she took 7 years off after giving birth to raise her two sons. She said she wondered if she can bounce back and appear in TV again like her colleagues. Now, she is one of the most successful actresses and it reminded me I shouldn’t be too afraid of having some gap in my journey.
This was a timely reminder for me and I hope it also reminds you that life doesn’t have to be always sequential and in progress.
