why do i hate my life?
The story
my life looks stable as hell from the outside. decent house, wife, kids, steady payroll operations job, clean shirts, bills paid before the red notices show up. last night i typed the exact thing stuck in my head: why do i hate my life? then i deleted it because even seeing it made me feel like an ungrateful piece of shit. people would trade places with me!!! i know that. it doesnt make monday feel less like a trap.
at work i own the exception queue, which means every screwed up paycheck lands with me before it misses the service deadline. my boss called me at 6:20 while i was still brushing my teeth and said, "you never drop the ball." cool compliment 🙃 it actually means nobody else learns the reconciliation work because i always fix it. i stay green on chat, clear the variance report, and pretend quarter close doesnt make my chest feel packed with wet cement.
home is another shift with worse tracking. my mom needs her prescription refill handled because the pharmacy app is "too confusing." my brother sends me insurance forms with no message, like i work for him too. my wife asks if i ordered groceries, and i say yes even when i have to pull over and do it from my phone. the last order was $84, and she said, "you forgot the cereal again." damn, sorry the family logistics department had an outage!!!
i made this whole stupid image where i am the dependable one. i remember school pickup. i check the tires. i bring snacks to games. i fix the printer before anybody finishes yelling my name. if i say im tired, everybody gets that worried look, so i grin and say work is just busy. nobody asked me to become some human backup generator, but now they all plug into me and i keep standing there like an idiot 😑
the gross part hit me in the driveway. i had parked after work, turned the engine off, and just sat there with my hands on the wheel. no radio. no scrolling. through the front window i could see the kitchen light and somebody moving past it. my phone buzzed with a message asking where the grocery bags were. i didnt answer. sitting in that dark car was the best part of my whole week, and that realization scared the crap out of me.
i wasnt dreaming about leaving my family or driving somewhere dramatic. i just wanted nobody to need a damn thing from me. then one of my kids opened the front door and yelled that dinner was getting cold. i put on my normal face before getting out. later they hugged me goodnight and i felt guilty as hell, because they were sweet and i had still wanted that silent car more than i wanted to walk inside.
now i keep thinking about tomorrow's exception queue, my mom's refill, the missing cereal, and that little patch of quiet behind the steering wheel. my life is built exactly like i said i wanted, which makes this feel even more rude and messed up. am i supposed to be grateful until i stop feeling anything??? am i just lazy, selfish, or completely full of crap??? so tell me, why do i hate my life?
