Unfiltered

Prologue
I wrote this last Thursday evening. I sat down at my laptop and started to type. I wasn't sure what would come of it, but I thought I'd try. Since some of you have expressed an interest in more "unfiltered" SFD, I thought I'd post it here.

*    *    *
This fucking sucks. It's 7.30pm, and my wife is upstairs settling my daughter into bed while I'm down here.

It has not been a very good day. Sure, there was promise, but it quickly fizzled out. Originally, I was supposed to be at a site for an early morning start, but it got postponed to 10am. I opted to not tell work, thereby enabling me to get up with the munchkin and allow MTM to sleep in (which, for your information, she was unable to do). I got up and did some work and then spent a little time with the munchkin before heading out.

I came home to a quiet house as both my girls were asleep. When they woke, I commented that the munchkin didn't seem herself. MTM informed me that earlier in the day they were at the park and she fell pretty hard. She immediately started bawling inconsolably, for me. "I want my Daddy. I want my Daddy so he can make me feel better." She wasn't the same after that.

As I held her, I noticed she was warm. We took her temperature, and she had a mid-grade fever (102F). She spent the rest of the afternoon and evening nestled into one of us on the couch, as lethargic as I have ever seen her.

MTM tried to give her a lukewarm bath that she found too cold, and began wailing uncontrollably. The only thing that calmed her was my singing in the bathroom while MTM rinsed her off. After dressing her, I cradled my preschooler in my arms and just kept repeating, over and over, that I loved her, and that I was sorry she didn't feel well. I apologized for not being there when she needed me, and tried to explain that I had to go to work, and that by me going to work it allowed Mommy to stay home with her. We probably stayed like that for 20 minutes.

It sucks when your kid is hurting and there's nothing you can do about it, but it sucks more when technically there is something you could have done (in this case, taken a day off work). I hate having to leave them and go to work. It was different when MTM was working too; she would go off somewhere, and I would go off somewhere. Now I'm abandoning them in our house so I can sit in front of a computer doing the same mundane shit I have been doing for the last ten years that sounds interesting to other people but really is a job, as in, someone paying you money to do the same shit over and over.

So instead of being there for my daughter when she falls and calls my name, I am sitting in some pumping station making sure that shit doesn't flow out into the water table, or at some desk writing specifications that make sense to 1% of all people who will actually read them, and will never actually be followed.

I hate feeling like this, helpless, empty, unsure if I am doing the right thing. I wonder if my belief is right, that I cannot make as much money doing freelance/contract work than I do at my current job. I wonder if we would all be happier if I worked out of our house, or if I've just romanticized the notion, and really I'd drive my wife nuts (or they would drive me nuts) by being around all the time.

And all this is secondary, because right now my daughter is upstairs with a fever, feeling shitty, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. Fuck.

*    *    *
Epilogue
The munchkin was fine the next morning. Her fever went away, and throughout the day her appetite increased. She was her old self by the time I got home, so we kept our plan and went out for dinner (where she ate reasonably well).