The Unanswered Question

January 31st will mark the second anniversary of my having left the work force.

And, after two years, that ever present question still remains in my head – What the F am I doing with my life?

In the literal sense, I know the answer to that question. Making dinner, doing laundry, running errands, going to doctor appointments, jogging a couple miles three or four times a week, paying bills, and staying on top of home maintenance.

That last one is the killer.

I’ll give you the events from this week as an example. The week started off with the countertop install. I realize that was a home improvement activity, not a home maintenance activity – and an unnecessary one at that – but it kicked things off. That went very well, and I love them, and I will show them off in an upcoming scrapbook post.

My uncle came the next day and installed the sink. Again, that went smoothly. Except for the garbage disposal that he discovered needed to be replaced while he was down there.

Since I wanted to keep him busy for the whole day, which I had no problem doing, we discovered a few other things over the course of the day.

First, there is a water issue in the girls’ bathroom. It appears the plumbing behind the shower fixtures might be leaking. Unfortunately, there is a nice wall of tile on one side of that plumbing and a built-in cabinet on the other side. Decisions, decisions.

As we were checking out the shower, he reminded me I would need to have all the smoke detectors replaced before selling. I believe we have 9 of them.

As he was leaving for the day, I mentioned to him that I was hearing animals in our bedroom wall at night, and I asked him if I could continue ignoring them. He said no, and he added he thought he had smelled something funny in the bedroom when he was up there.

I had the pest control guy here today, and, while we were up in the attic, he commented on the state of the plywood on the interior of the roof. You see, our attic use to be very damp because, while the builder installed a nice ridge vent at the top of the roof, he never opened it up – another problem my uncle corrected years ago, but only after the plywood had turned black. Every contractor I happen to have up there points it out to me. This one added “That’s the first thing they look at in a resale.”

It doesn’t stop.

Because of that, I figure those of you who are in the work force fall into one of three categories:

1. You are miserably stressed out and exhausted from dealing with everything.
2. You let things slide.
3. You are tired in a good way because you are wonderfully fulfilled by your job.

I don’t know anyone in the third category, and you may have guessed that I was in the first category when I worked.

Now that I’m not working, a new category has opened up for me. The guilt-ridden and feeling like a slouch.

Because the aforementioned activities don’t quite fill up my time, I spend a whole lot of time on this blog (and my “novel” and Medium). And I feel guilty about it. And it raises another form of that ever-persistent question:

What the F am I doing with this blog?

And other related questions pop into my head: What is the point of it? Am I doing anything meaningful here? How can I improve it? How do I get more followers, and am I willing to do what it takes to do that? Why do I want more followers? Is the blog ridiculous? Why would anyone care about my kitchen sink or my Thanksgiving turkeys?

Sometimes it’s to the point I feel like screaming. I should get a job. But I enjoy this too much. Or I would enjoy it if I didn’t feel so guilty. And even if I did get a job, I think the original question would still persist.

A friend recently commented that his favorite posts were the ones where I wrote about what I was thinking and feeling, so you can blame this post on him.

My next post will be about ham.