My Life is a Project
Unfortunately, I didn’t receive the instructions
Unfortunately, I didn’t receive the instructions
When I was young, my father always had projects to work on. He grew up in my grandfather's shop, learning how to use power tools to build cabinets, chairs, and fix walls — a real wood worker. So, what I remember most is the garage in my childhood home always had tools, woodchips, and sawdust scattered about the floor.
It smelled like wood glue and sweat. My father loved working with his hands even if it wore them out faster than perhaps, he wanted. I used to look at his knuckles and see the incredibly deep valley of wrinkles form when his fingers flattened on a table. They were dry, crusty, cracking, and old looking, but my hands as a young boy seemed much smoother, and I was happy about it.
Thirty-five years later, I work from home on a computer and hardly use power tools. The most I’ve ever created with wood was putting together baby cribs and bed frames or perhaps a computer desk or a bookshelf from Walmart. I don’t like the outdoors unless there is a swimming pool involved, and I’ve never carved anything out of wood or helped build walls, yet my hands look like my fathers all those years ago. My projects are different, yet the outcome is the same.
I’ve spent the last several weeks working on two Medium publications, a European vacation to the UK and France, karate events for my son, and dance recitals for my daughter. I have written articles about death, school shootings, and crossed 1,000 followers while joining the Medium Boost Nomination Pilot and learning everything I can about the platform.
At work, I’ve trained two new customer support reps from the Philippines who report to me. This work also includes the “Voice of the Customer” project which analyzes and acts upon customer feedback from the various teams around the company. I’ve consoled a distraught wife as she mourns the loss of her grandmother, and a mother in-law who has lost her mom and is losing her husband to cancer. So far, all of these projects are successful. Yet, I feel tired more now than ever.
It might be because I’m not sleeping well. I sit awake at night until 2 A.M. either writing, watching YouTube, or simply lying in bed waiting until I feel tired. I wake up at 6:30 A.M. with my wife so I can see her before she leaves for work and then I walk up my stairs to begin my own shift at home. My children are in summer break from school and are home most of the day with the exception of going to Grandma’s house twice a week.
You would be forgiven if you thought after a day like this, I would want to crash into my bed at 8 P.M. and quickly fall asleep, but I don’t. Instead, the cycle repeats. Part of me wonders if my body and mind will simply give up one day in protest of the hell I put them through on a daily basis.
I’m likely going to miss several years of my life as I speed toward my inevitable conclusion faster than I would like. If my life is a one-mile-long sheet of paper, I can hear the scissors trimming the end of the paper by a single millimeter for each glass of wine I drink or each night I don’t sleep enough. No amount of jogging or healthy diet can glue those slices back on.
The project of my life is torn around the edges and getting older by the day. When my father worked in our garage he was dedicated, clean, and clear with the instructions. He wrote constantly in mathematical terms I could never understand. Instead, I write in prose and poetry he will never understand because, even if he was still in my life, I doubt he would be able to relate to my situation or my emotional and philosophical quandaries. Father wasn’t exactly “book smart” but his friends would say he knew enough.
I return to my desk the next morning in an attempt to find closure in an article I’ve been writing my entire life. A story that only ends in a surprise twist. Even the author can’t say for sure how it ends. And although tired, exhausted, and worn, I will continue to laugh, play, and jam to my favorite songs. I will play games with my children because I know our time together is fleeting. I will hug and kiss my wife as she leaves for her job, tell my kids goodbye and love you as they leave for friend's houses, school activities, and dances until I close the back cover and close my eyes.
