Ya Know What I Was Thinking?

How Dark Is It, Really?

I look around me and I sigh. It "seems worn and overused," as Mr. Howe & Co. put it. My clothes are mostly second hand. My house is 50% death trap, 50% dump, 100% money pit. There's never enough cashola to cover everything. My wife's health always ranges somewhere between poor and poorer. And my cat, which seldom shuts up, is the size of a small tun.

So yeah…*sigh*

...I ought to be hosswhipped, oughtn't I!? See, that's the thought that follows in the next breath after I heave that selfish sigh. What gives?

I bought my house in 2021. Lost my job within days of closing the deal. When I was able to move in and begin looking into my new gem, I found all sorts of hidden issues. And I mean that literally—hidden! A main support post in the main living room had been removed, and the upstairs was slowly sagging its way downstairs. The remedy the former owner had put in place? Add a drop-ceiling downstairs so no one can see the sagging joists, and create a series of wedges upstairs to put flat floorboards across to level up that area. Instead of replacing plaster walls with drywall, the former owner simply built another wall over top of the old. Now, instead of having 6-inch thick walls, we had 1-foot thick walls! The doorway from our kitchen to the dining room looked like a passage in a hobbit hole! Electric was jenky, there was a problem with the well, the septic system was almost full. Ugh!

When I finally got a new job, I was ecstatic. But after having worked from home 100% of the time for the better part of a decade, I realized I had verry little clothing to wear into the office, even as "business casual." During my first week there, my boss brought in a large stack of shirts. "I don't fit these anymore; you want them?" he asked. They were all very nice polo shirts with the company logo emblazoned on them. More ecstatic-ness ensued. It's a small company, and the CEO works just down the hall; it's not uncommon at all for him to stop in one's office to say hello. "Did they bring the 'ghost logo' back after all these years?" he asked one day, referring to my shirt. I was to embarrassed to say I was wearing hand-me-downs as a junior leader in the first days at my new job.

I make decent money, but everybody seems to have their hands so deep in my pockets, they're tugging on my socks! We live from paycheck to paycheck, sometimes hand-to-mouth, singing day-before-payday blues as we heat up mac 'n' cheese and wieners once again.

My wife has rotten health: bad back that's only ever going to get worse, diabetes… and me as a partner! Welcome home, medical bills upon medical bills upon medical bills!

And I'm just not even going to go into details about the hairy walking tub of Crisco not-so-affectionately called Fat Bastard!

So why am I bitching? What's the point? Why am I sighing live a love-lost schoolgirl?

Because it ain't so bad. Truly, it just ain't so bad.

Some people are so much less fortunate than me, they would kill to live in this house I call a piece of crap. There are people who have to wear the same set or two of clothing every day. Too many don't even have enough cash to buy wieners, let alone nice warm mac 'n' cheese; and when they get sick, they get the minimum of health care since they can't pay any medical bills.

And some people are so lonely, they don't even have a fluffy fat cat to lay down on them, crush their thighs into tingling near-numbness, and purr them consolingly back to peace.

Things could be worse. Things might get worse; I might inadvertently make things worse.

But things aren't so bad. They seldom are when one looks at them in the context of how bad things could be.

Things aren't so bad. Just bear that in mind as you grind through your day. Let it be a little ray of okay-ness for you, or a life preserver if you feel like you're drowning.

Things could be worse, so maybe things ain't so bad.